读者文摘:给人留下聪明印象的技巧(1)

Sheepishly, Kevin Adkins admits that when he's insecure, he uses big words to appear smarter.

凯文·阿德金斯不好意思地承认，当他缺乏安全感时，他会用一些大词来显得更聪明。

"Only when I need to impress the person," says the 45-year-old. "Dates with women? Definitely.

这个45岁的家伙说道，“只在我需要给这个人留下印象的时候。”“和女人约会？肯定的。

At the grocery store? Not so much." A few years ago, when flirting¹ with a stylist at the barbershop,

在杂货店？没那么多。”几年前，在理发店和一个造型师调情时，

he asked her to give him a "symmetric" hair-cut instead of just requesting that she trim it evenly.

他要求她给他剪一个“对称的”发型，而不是仅仅要求她修剪均匀。

And when he gave an attractive woman directions,

他在指示这个迷人的女人时，

he made a point of telling her that the two options they'd discussed were "equidistant"

他向这个女人强调说，他们讨论的两个选项是“等距”，

rather than simply saying that both were about the same distance.

而不是简单地距离大概相同。

Adkins is among the myriad² Homo sapiens who suffer from periphrasis.

阿德金斯是众多饱受迂回表达之苦的智人之一。

Translation: Many of us use longer words in place of shorter ones.

翻译：我们中很多人使用长话代替短话。

Because folks know, consciously or unconsciously, that others form impressions of them after a glance or a short conversation,

因为人们知道，不论有意还是无意，另一些人是在一瞥或简短的交谈后形成对他们的印象，

they often work harder to give the "right" impression.

他们经常更努力地去留下“正确”的印象。

"People think, If I can show that I have a good vocabulary, I'll sound smarter,"

“人们认为，如果我用词高级的话，我听起来会更聪明。”

says Daniel Oppenheimer, PhD, a professor of psychology³ at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

匹兹堡卡内基梅隆大学的心理学教授丹尼尔·奥本海默博士说道。

The problem with this plan is that it can easily go wrong.

这个计划的问题是它很容易出错。

"It's almost a game that two people are playing," says Eric R. Igou, PhD, a social psychologist at Ireland's University of Limerick.

“这几乎是两个人在玩的游戏，”爱尔兰利默里克大学的社会心理学家埃里克·R·艾构博士说。

"If the observer, person B, doesn't have the same theory, it can backfire."

“如果这个观察者，人物B没有同样的理论，它可能会产生反效果。”

Person A may be perceived as pretentious⁴ instead of intelligent.

人物A可能会被视作自命不凡的人而不是智慧的人。

Using big words may also confuse listeners, which is definitely moving in the wrong direction.

使用大词可能也会使听的人迷惑，这肯定会走向错误的方向。

"People associate intelligence with clarity of expression," says Oppenheimer.

奥本海默说，“人们将智慧和清晰的表达联系在一起。”

That's especially true when it comes to the written word.

在使用书面语时，这一点尤其正确。

A small study cited in Applied⁵ Cognitive⁶ Psychology found a negative relationship between complexity⁷ of writing and judged intelligence:

《应用认知心理学》上引用的一项小型研究发现，写作的复杂性与判断能力之间存在负相关关系：

The more writers tried to sound smart, the less intelligent they were perceived to be.

作家越是想听起来更聪明，人们对他们的感知就越不聪明。

So what can you do to sound smarter? Speak clearly and directly. Leave the dictionary and thesaurus at your desk.

你可以做什么让自己听起来更聪明呢？清晰和直接的表达。把词典和宝库放在你的桌上。

And follow these tips, which come from behavioral psychologists (and other very bright people)

还有遵从以下来自行为心理学家（和其他很聪明的人）的建议

1 flirting   

v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Don't take her too seriously; she's only flirting with you. 别把她太当真，她只不过是在和你调情罢了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• 'she's always flirting with that new fellow Tseng!" “她还同新来厂里那个姓曾的吊膀子！ 来自子夜部分

2 myriad   

adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量

参考例句：

• They offered no solution for all our myriad problems.对于我们数不清的问题他们束手无策。
• I had three weeks to make a myriad of arrangements.我花了三个星期做大量准备工作。

3 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

4 pretentious   

adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的

参考例句：

• He is a talented but pretentious writer.他是一个有才华但自命不凡的作家。
• Speaking well of yourself would only make you appear conceited and pretentious.自夸只会使你显得自负和虚伪。

5 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

6 cognitive   

adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的

参考例句：

• As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
• The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。

7 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。