Mark Twain vs Pretentious Words

"Twain on spelling reform"
"From Mark Twain's Speeches (1910), extracts"
Writing Systems, by Vivian Cook (undated)

"In 1883 … I was scrambling along, earning the family's bread on magazine work at seven cents a word, compound words at single rates, just as it is in the dark present. I was the property of a magazine, a seven-cent slave under a boiler-iron contract. One day there came a note from the editor requiring me to write ten pages on this revolting text: "Considerations concerning the alleged subterranean holophotal extemporaneousness of the conchyliaceous superimbrication of the Ornithorhyncus, as foreshadowed by the unintelligibility of its plesiosaurian anisodactylous aspects.'

"Ten pages of that. Each and every word a seventeen-jointed vestibuled railroad train. Seven cents a word. I saw starvation staring the family in the face. I went to the editor, and … I said, 'Read that text, Jackson, and let it go on the record; read it out loud.' He read it: 'Considerations concerning the alleged subterranean holophotal extemporaneousness of the conchyliaceous superimbrication of the Ornithorhyncus, as foreshadowed by the unintelligibility of its plesiosaurian anisodactylous aspects.'

"I said, 'You want ten pages of those rumbling, great, long, summer thunderpeals, and you expect to get them at seven cents a peal?'... "

The rest of the page is Mark Twain's response to the pretentious linguistic perorations so prevalent in his time.

Before we get too proud of today's efficient language, remember that a penchant for pretentiousness persists: "Do People Understand Your Poems? Does Your Poetry Make Sense? Now You Can Fix That!" (March 21, 2008).