Over-wording is a game my friends and I like to play where we try to say things using as wide a vocabulary as possible. As teenagers, we would sometimes employ over-wording to openly communicate about our plans which would specifically exclude those who could not keep up. It was a lot of fun.

Over-wording is not just using ten words when two would do, honestly. (I’m sorry that’s the case, that’s just British policy). That said, memes and ion-jokes are not only allowed but required. The aim is to use as wide and unusual a vocabulary set as possible. Originally this was so what you said would be lost on those who couldn’t keep secrets. These days it is just a fun game we play.

Over-wording techniques

Big words: The bigger and more obscure the better as long as the other person still understands you. Instead of tiny, you could use infinitesimal (even if this would be a figurative use of the word).

Loans words from other languages: Borrow from other languages that the in-group or team have a passing familiarity with. Instead of apple, you could use the French pomme. If you know what the French for potatoes is, you might even go for something like pomme de l’arbre.

Roll your own euphemism: For example, you could take Brit (someone British) and acknowledge that Austrailians call us poms, not that Pomme is French for apple and use Apples to mean Brits. Now you have an in-group word with a meaning known only to the group.

Approximate a noun with adjectives: Describe something instead of naming it. For example, a car could become a rolling metal box.

Use archaic word forms: Words such as murther, thy, thine, and so forth can cause unprepared listeners to lose track of what you are saying. There are some tips on archaic word usage in the brill-roll (sidebar).

Be inexact and hope the other person understands from context. For example, “render unto me thy thing”.

Invent words using the rules of word making: Verbing nouns is fun – googling is a verbed noun. use prefixes and suffixes – great for negated forms un-nice (nasty), un-made (broken), un-ate (vomited). Sometimes compounding two words together works too. (How do you think over-wording came to be?)

Use niche and sub-culture references: For example, to beckham the rules would mean to bend the rules like David Beckham bends balls through the air. It might also be used to describe something unexpected (a curve ball) – her request was a total beckham.

Example: Pass the salt, please.

This is not over-wording

Hey, you down there with the hair. When you have a moment, could you please pass in my direction the salt? Thank you ever so much, you lovely person, you.

That is being verbose.

This is over-wording

I say, would you facilitate the travel of the glass container of sodium towards my location?

A steampunk side-quest version of over-wording

One fun derivation of over-wording is to act like a steampunk time-traveller determined to remain polite despite lacking the common modern vocabulary such that you are forced to employ a rather pedantic and exact descriptive application to items and ideas with which you are yet to be familiar.

Don’t be a dick with over-wording

Over-wording can make those not in on the game feel stupid and left out. This is a dick move and something a good friend should never do. Encourage others to extend their vocabulary and join in.

How well can you follow over-wording?

It is the use of rare or unusual words and not the number of words that makes over-wording what it is. Here are a few examples to test your comprehension upon. Click the button located somewhere within the sidebar to witness the solutions.

Thine servant’s tardiness renders him indebted to our enterprise, request he rectify with delayed departure.

Your employee was late. Make him stay late to make up the time.

Upon your paternal sire’s retirement, shall we take a constitutional towards the petroleum retailer and inhale upon the disapproved-of paper enclosures of dry leaves?

When your dad goes to bed, do you want to pop up to the garage and get some cigarettes? (Implying: Your dad doesn’t like us doing that but I want to.)

I must reluctantly indicate in the negative due to misplacing my time machine.

I’d love to but I’m busy then.

That dude is the type who only ever plays a fighter

He’s basic.

This is something of a cant for D&D fans. The fighter is the easiest and most basic class. It is also an in-group reference to JoCat’s video “A Crap Guide to D&D [5th Edition] – Fighter” which, as a D&D fan you need to have watched at least twice.

This over-wording is at least two argots deep. If someone says you are basic they probably think that you are someone devoid of any real defining characteristics that might make a person interesting.

Hot milky beverage?

Would you like a cup of tea? (This one works on a shared understanding that the only viable hot drink with milk in is tea. This cant is used inside my friendship group as we are all tea drinkers.)

Let us, posthaste with maximised application of stealth, eject ourselves and perambulate to a variant imbibition house prior to our companion’s untoward mammiferous obsession rousing violence upon our persons.

We should slip out and go to another pub. That guy’s bad behaviour towards women is going to get us in trouble.

Shall we go somewhere where we can legitimately set fire to these?

We can’t smoke in here, shall we go outside where we can?

Fermented leaves?

Would you like a cup of tea?

What? My friends and I love tea.

Hold tight upon thy stallions

Wait. Be patient. (Hold your horses)

Try your hand at over-wording and I’ll try to reply with the simplified form.