Basic Trope: A character always uses long words that another character may or may not understand.
- Straight: Alice constantly uses long words that Bob doesn't understand.
- Exaggerated: Alice uses words too long and difficult that people around her spend the whole week trying to figure out their meanings.
- Downplayed: Alice usually uses words that are up to four syllables long.
- Justified:
- Alice was taught (or forced) to use long and sophisticated words by her Mad Scientist mother from a young age, and now she grew used to it.
- Alice has an extensive vocabulary and understands the meaning of the long words she uses.
- Alice is an alien whose language often translates to English in big words.
- Alice wants to make herself look smart in front of Bob.
- Inverted: Alice uses short words that everyone understands.
- Subverted:
- At the end of a sentence, Alice says "silly" when she could have said "preposterous."
- It turns out even Alice used those words, but doesn't know what they actually meant.
- Double Subverted: "Did I say silly? I meant preposterous."
- Parodied:
- Alice uses ridiculously long words such as "antidisestablishmentarianism" and "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" with children and uneducated people only.
- Every big word that Alice uses turns out to be a malaproper.
- Zig Zagged:
- "So, Griseotyrannus aurantioatrocris-, you know what, let's just call it a crowned slaty flycatcher, for today. I mean, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, you know. Anyway, so Griseotyrannus aurantioatrocristatus is commonly found in South America and..."
- Or, Alice is Sophisticated as Hell.
- Averted: Alice's vocabulary is normal.
- Enforced: "Hey, let's have Alice be so obnoxious by making her use long words her friends don't understand."
- Lampshaded: "Why do you keep using long words I don't understand?"
- Invoked: Alice keeps a dictionary at her desk at school, and reads from it each day before lunch.
- Defied:
- Alice decides to use words Bob (and, by extension, the viewer) will understand.
- Alternatively, Alice is afraid to use long words, because she doesn't think anyone will understand her.
- As soon as Alice starts using long words, Bob tells her to shut up and switch to plain, simple English.
- Exploited:
- Alice enters a spelling bee where she has to spell long words like the ones she uses. Bonus points if she has to spell the word antidisestablishmentarianism.
- Alternatively, Bob gives Alice the Soap Punishment whenever she (unknowingly) makes a Double Entendre.
- Discussed: "Alice surely loves to throw in words that are so hard to understand, man."
- Conversed: "I can't understand what she's saying, can you?"
- Implied: Bob is talking to Alice on the phone, and only his side of the conversation is heard. When Bob hangs up, he tells Charlie how Alice kept using lengthy words he couldn't understand.
- Deconstructed: Alice's Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness causes everyone in her class except the teacher to be unable to understand her. This creates a communication barrier between her and her classmates, and over time, she becomes alienated from her peers as they refuse to talk to her.
- Reconstructed:
- The teacher provides everyone in the class with a dictionary, so they can understand what Alice is saying.
- The teacher notices it, and advises her to speak in simpler terms, only using Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness with people on her level. Alice follows it, and slowly gets better at making friends.
- Played For Laughs: Even on her dying bed, Alice's last word is "Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism".
My dear troper, you can turn back to the original starting point Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, If you may choose to
