Were you taught to "dumb yourself down"?

Post Reply New Topic

People often asked me to dumb things down for them when I was younger. I had a tendency to confuse people with my advanced vocabulary and knowledge of esoteric topics.

I have always had an extensive vocabulary and I try to simplify as often as I possibly can, I despise repeating myself. It drives me crazy when I have to go back and re-explain what I just said in simpler words WITHOUT sounding demeaning.

EX:
ME:It has been quite the exhilarating and exceptional evening, I especially enjoyed the surprise around 7:00. it was superb!
Person:What?
ME: Tonight was fun,that thing happened with the guy around 7:00 was my favorite.
Person:OH... I was confused, you kinda used big words.
Me:(inner screaming) yea sorry about that.

I kinda got it that I should dumb down when I was in my teens. All those moments of being a little professor really had no benefit, it made adults think I was some bright kid with a future but all my peers just though I was weird, creepy, and slow which is closer to the reality honestly. They were the ones going places developing their talents and having deep meaningful conversations while understanding their knowledge and being able to apply it in genius ways, while I wasted time in front of a computer skimming over things and instantly becoming some expert where then I loaded people with useless facts.

I was never taught, however as a tutor I had to learn it to even be able to make it easy and comprehensible to people with learning disabilities.
Johnnyh, no fact is useless. People just don't want to listen. It feels as if many aspies have no sense of self worth, faulty logic or constantly dwell on their problems. I dont get along too well with aspies and often avoid contact with NTs.

I was never taught so directly, and never heard anything of the kind from my family. But I have several times said things in class (or read my assignments in class) and had other pupils ask what that meant.
Once in 7th grade I was told by my Norwegian teacher that she hoped I actually knew what the words I used meant. I had never used a word I didn't know the meaning of, so annoyed I muttered: "What do you need me to explain". It probably didn't earn me any points with her, but what snarky teen cares?

There is very clear pattern of all those who have asked me to dumb down what I say or write:

1. When I looked for "jobs" before I was self-employed: Recruiters who had trouble relating my CV to their simplistic list of key words and attributes.

2. Sales professionals who were looking for a simplistic and universally applicable elevator pitch, in the hope of being able to develop a cookie cutter approach to successful sales.

Luckily we now live in a networked world where both recruiters and sales professionals are becoming obsolete. The functions of recruitment and sales remain, but both can now be performed very effectively directly by business owners and suitable software tools.

I've never had this problem, as I'm only about average, or below average on some things.

Yep.

Not directly, as in people outright telling me to dumb down, but all through my childhood adults sniped at me for "talking like a dictionary," with the implication that using a large vocabulary was a Bad Thing.

Interesting observation about the poll results:

The ratio of No:Yes for female right now is 3:4
The ratio of No:Yes for male right now is 3:4
The ratio of No:Yes for other right now is 0:3

I taught myself.

I dumbed myself down out of embarrassment. Does that count? O.o

As a young child (Preschool - Grade 3-ish), I did not appreciate that other people have different levels of intellect. I thought that they were all just as smart as me, but were pretending to be really stupid. Turns out they weren't. I had 'copied' them, and pretended to be about as clever as everybody else. On tests etc. I did my best and got good marks, but when talking to people (including my parents), I would pretend to be 'stupid' ('stupid' in my opinion, I was actually being more normal).

I stopped doing this at some stage during primary school. I now behave to my intellect (I cannot be bothered to pretend any more, and do not want to be deceitful). My parents tell me to be more normal, but I don't really understand why, and usually ignore them.

I found that interesting as well. Most particularly with those who don't define their gender in binary terms. Now, I'm all curious about that.

I have learned to stand corrected. I assumed that I was taught this because I am a female. My mother didn't overtly teach my brother to dumb himself down. He does however use a vocabulary that goes beyond most people and he is repeatedly told (by me, too), to explain it with words I understand. Or, often I like him to just define the words I didn't know. He was the smart one in the family, so I always found it interesting that I was the one taught to intellectually cripple myself.

Wow, I had thought I was told to dumb it down because I was female too, but maybe I'm wrong. My parents didn't mind me talking with a lot of big words because they were college professors, and they talked pretty much the same way. My mom would trot out any of us kids before guests to do something talented--the boys playing musical instruments, me and my art or just talking like an encyclopedia. I got bullied a lot in school if I used too many big words, overly formal grammar, or answered too many questions. In high school, my brother told me that boys don't date brainy girls and that I need to stop sounding so smart.

Well technically, "dumbing yourself down" is the opposite, having a large vocabulary isn't the only sign of being smart.