History Main / SesquipedalianLoquaciousness

* ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'': Phase is known for this, and has even used it deliberately to confuse or delay his opponents.

* Sheldon from ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' talks like this all the time. Any of the four main geeks do this often, mostly between themselves or colleagues when discussing theories or projects, but are quick to drop it around Penny as to include her... well, except for Sheldon, but he expects people to accommodate ''him'' in any situation, and will complain about having to do so for others.
** Sheldon even talks like this when he's speaking to Penny about simple everyday things; he usually ends up having to put things in LaymansTerms for her and never seems to realize that he should have just done so in the first place.

* Website/{{Wikipedia}} can be said as being infamous for this:

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'':
** EvilGenius Plankton has a habit of speaking this way. His speaking this way in trying to recruit {{mooks}} in a BadGuyBar doesn't end well for him.
--->'''Plankton:''' Felicitations, malefactors! I am endeavoring to misappropriate the formulary for the preparation of affordable comestibles! Who will join me?
** [[TheDitz Patrick]], surprisingly, talks this way several times, just not to the point seen above.
--->'''Patrick:''' The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma.
* Reggie Moonshroud from ''WesternAnimation/GravedaleHigh'' often talks like this.
* Cap'n Turbot from ''WesternAnimation/PAWPatrol'' tends to talk with long ''and'' alliterative words.
-->'''Cap'n Turbot:''' It's perplexing, how to pull a poor pachyderm up such a steep perpendicular precipice.
-->'''Francois''': ''(confused)'' Uh...what?

* Fellow pre-TeenGenius Jimmy Neutron in ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'' is also fond of the trope.
* ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'':
** Wind Whistler. "This meteorological debacle is quite anomalous."
** Peach Blossom too: "I will reconnoiter post-haste and ascertain what has transpired!"
** Twilight Sparkle from ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' exhibits this trope whenever she's describing anything sciency, often showing great pride at her loquacious explanation.

* Tish in ''WesternAnimation/TheWeekenders''. It becomes a plot point of an episode where the others refer to it as "Tishing" and it becomes a widespread saying.
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'':
** As Brainstorm (a "seafood platter with a rather high IQ", as he puts it), Ben 10 is prone to using extremely large words. [[SmartPeopleSpeakTheQueensEnglish With a British accent.]] His previous "smart form", Greymatter, tended to use words of a more normal size unless referring to scientific principles.
--->'''Grey Matter:''' What is your malfunction? Probably something stupid like the DNA splicing replicator copying a fragment of amino acid sequence.'' ''[pause as Ben's mind starts to catch up]'' So this is what it feels like to be smart.
** The Vreedle Brothers are a bizarre combination of erudite and slow-minded idiots.
--->'''Octagon Vreedle:''' Now, can you see how one might construe that there reaction of yours as a tad bit excessive, if not wholly unnecessary?
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
** "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E23BartsFriendFallsInLove Bart's Friend Falls in Love]]" has Homer start talking like this after a SleepLearning tape intended to curb his hunger is switched with a vocabulary builder. "Lamentably, no. My gastronomic rapacity knows no satiety." Later played with, when Homer loses his vocabulary without regaining his ability to communicate succinctly.
--->'''Homer:''' Marge, where's that... metal dealy... you use to... dig... food...\\
'''Marge:''' You mean, a spoon?
** Some of the more intellectually inclined Springfield residents (Sideshow Bob, Professor Frink) occasionally indulge in this. And then there's Mr. Burns and his AntiquatedLinguistics. Being the aesthete that he is, Sideshow Bob, however, rejected the sesquipedalian but inelegant "disembowel" in favour of a much shorter word when he wrote down what to do with Bart in ''Cape Feare'':
--->'''Sideshow Bob:''' No, I don't like that 'bowel' in there. Gut him! ''Ah, le mot juste''.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/WordGirl'' involves a villain using AppliedPhlebotinum to cause random people to use large words in order to sell dictionaries. Wordgirl surprisingly averted this in one episode when she says that it's more important to use good words than big words.
* Doctor Octopus in ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'', especially post-FreakOut. "I cannot believe I once lived in this anemic hovel."
* Perceptor, of ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers''. It's particularly bad when your fellow robots, all of whom would likely have the whole of a given language in their databanks, ask you to say something "in [language], please". It probably doesn't help that he has a habit of going into details WHILE using complex words, to the point where Optimus tires of it in seconds. It's actually kind of justified; he's a gifted scientist in multiple areas, is used to thinking of these high-end areas in their scientific terms, and like any good real-life scientist, is really enthusiastic about his subject(s), and likes to discuss them when the opportunity comes up.
** Grimlock also does it when he gets smart in the episode "Grimlock's New Brain".
*** [[ComicBook/TransformersShatteredGlass I, Grimlock, after being gifted with remarkable intelligence, also speak in this manner in the mirror universe.]]
** Highbrow is also guilty of this, in "The Rebirth".
--->'''Highbrow:''' I suppose it's the only meritorious way out of a meretricious situation.\\
'''Hardhead:''' Yeah, me too, like he said.
** Oddly enough, Brainstorm, who was the actual [[TheSmartGuy smart guy]] of the Headmasters team, spoke fairly commonly unless he actually needed the jargon. Highbrow just did it to ''sound'' smart.
** You don't wanna get GeniusDitz Bulkhead from ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' talking about space bridges. You'll miss Perceptor.
** Across all series, CallARabbitASmeerp is in effect and machine-related terms with elements of the Cybertronian life-cycle mixed in are always used. This can leave characters who are ''not'' supposed to be geniuses talking as if the X-Men's Beast taught them English on the way in. They're not parents, they're "protoform batch initiators." Even the show's tagline, "MoreThanMeetsTheEye", can be given onscreen as "more than meets the optic sensors."

* In ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'' more than any other incarnation, Donatello is guilty of this. He frequently geeks out about future technology or the chemical properties of things he runs across, and TechnoBabble ensues. One of the others (usually Michelangelo, but occasionally Raphael) [[LampshadeHanging acknowledges this]], and usually asks him to repeat himself in English this time. Though sometimes the writers sacrifice snappier dialogue to remind us that he's the smart one:
-->'''Donatello:''' If we take the south conduit, it'll ''intersect'' with the old drainage tunnel!

* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': This is enforced by the titular duo. In "Lotsa Latkes" they're shown to be keeping a list of words beginning with "s" that kids their age seldom use, and checking them off as they say them.

* Same thing goes for Brain on ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}''. In fact, it's shown that his parents keep a large dictionary at the dinner table because of it.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'', [[MadArtist Splatter Phoenix]] talks like this. How bad is it? Well, in her introduction she calls herself a "daringly innovative pseudo anti-neo post modern deconstructionist" and gets more long-winded from there.
* Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown, a.k.a. The Doc, as portrayed in the ''WesternAnimation/BackToTheFuture'' animated series, is the '''king''' of this. The movie version, while prone to TechnoBabble, isn't nearly as bad. Jules is also a master at it.
-->'''Doc Brown:''' Golden fluid produced by the apis mellifera. I'm home.\\
'''Clara:''' Oh, Emmett, I love it when you call me "honey".
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'':
** Good old Professor Farnsworth can have this effect when he actually is making sense
--->'''Farnsworth:''' There. That space-time eversion has given us their box and vice-versa!\\
'''Leela:''' So what you think you just explained to us is that--\\
'''Farnsworth:''' Correct! This box contains our own universe!
** In another episode, it was turned around on him:
--->'''Ethan "Bubblegum" Tate:''' I think we got ourselves an excess of Cronotons in the subatomic interstices.\\
'''Farnsworth:''' Yes, I see. Something involving that many big words could easily destabilize time itself.
* Mr. Longface Caterpillar from the 2009 ''WesternAnimation/StrawberryShortcake'' movie peppers his speech with overly fancy words, which are [[LaymansTerms translated]] by Blueberry Muffin. This is {{inverted|Trope}} at one point when he mentions fool's gold, and Blueberry "translates" this to its official name, iron pyrite. He continues this on the ''Berry Bitty Adventures'' show.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' episode "TV or not TV" Brain has a brief career as a stand-up comedian involving him insulting the audience by phrasing his insults using Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness. The Brain does this constantly, even going so far as to rephrase common expressions with more advanced vocabulary ("The game does not conclude until the woman with the eating disorder ululates.")
* Egon Spengler's penchant for this in ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters'' and ''WesternAnimation/ExtremeGhostbusters'' is exaggerated from his movie counterpart.
-->'''Peter:''' Egon, remember what I said. If you're gonna stay on our planet, you have to speak our language.
* Tom in ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingChanAndTheChanClan'' is practically ''defined'' by this trope, to the point where his siblings have commented more than once about how they wished he'd speak English. Also in "The Greek Caper", Tom was about to offer his suggestion on how to search for missing statue and was gently told by Alan to "keep it simple". Henry lampshades this in the comic book adaptation of "To Catch A Pitcher":
-->'''Henry:''' Who else sounds like he ate a dictionary for breakfast?
* Moonrock on ''WesternAnimation/ThePebblesAndBammBammShow'' would always do this. When the team went looking for a four-leaf clover to improve Schleprock's bad luck, he exclaimed, "Eureka! A Marsilea quadrifolia!"
* Gretchen on ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'' commonly speaks like this.
* ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' had Mr. Green run for city councilman against Councilman Gladhand, one of whom's tactics was using big words. Mr. Green even worried he couldn't win the election because he thought he couldn't sound as smart. [[spoiler: He does win.]]
* Velma on ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'' was prone to this early on.
* Parodied temporarily in ''WesternAnimation/TheGrinchGrinchesTheCatInTheHat'': WesternAnimation/TheCatInTheHat speaks like this on occasion, notably from his first meeting with the Grinch until the Grinch starts scrambling his voice with his Vacuu-Sound Sweeper.
* Megabyte Beagle on two occasions in the ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' TV movie[[note]]later shown in the actual series as a 5-part episode[[/note]] ''Super [=DuckTales=]''. On both, he would eventually be told to "say it in Beagle talk".
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'':
** This trope was subverted in a gag where Peter was watching one of Dennis Miller's famous rants.
--->'''Dennis Miller:''' I don't wanna go on a rant here, but America's foreign policy makes about as much sense as Beowulf having sex with Robert Fulton at the first Battle of Antietam. I mean, when a neo-conservative defenestrates, it's like Raskolnikov filibuster deoxymonohydroxinate.\\
'''Peter:''' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint What the hell does rant mean?]]
** Stewie does this in the early series; it was even {{lampshade|Hanging}}d by Brian in "Back to the Pilot", where Brian asks Present Stewie if he used a dictionary when he was Past Stewie.
** Peter develops this trait after he embarks on a journey of self-improvement and returns home as a scholar. His family has no idea what he's talking about.
* Trapper Bull Gator, and the Platypus Brothers from ''WesternAnimation/TazMania'' speak like this naturally.

* Bolin from ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' apparently feels that letters need to contain this.
* Captain Hook from ''WesternAnimation/PeterPanAndThePirates'' speaks so eloquently that many adults watching it would have a hard time understanding what he's referring to half the time. Fortunately he manages to make his meaning clear as most of the time he speaks when angry and insulting his crew. Despite being a pirate it doesn't come across as out of place thanks to the Victorian era gentleman style he has.
* Trader Johann from ''WesternAnimation/DragonsRidersOfBerk'' tends toward this trope, much to the chagrin of Hiccup and his friends when they need information from him. Also occasionally crosses over into DeadpanSnarker:
-->'''Hiccup:''' Remember my father, Stoick the Vast? Chief of Berk? Do you know what "trade sanctions" are?\\
'''Johann:''' Two words that should never be used in the same sentence?
* ''WesternAnimation/CowAndChicken'':
** In one episode the duo are visited by their black sheep cousin, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the Black Sheep]], whom everybody treats like a troublemaker. They do so partly because they assume he's a bad person out of stereotypical expectation, and partly because [[CallingMeALogarithm they don't understand his intelligent diction and think he's insulting them]]. Cow is the only person who's able to see past the ridiculous assumptions.
** This also happens to Cow herself in an episode where she gets glasses and somehow becomes a genius.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' has Billy get Grim to magically change his F- on a recent test to an A. This has the unforeseen consequence of reversing reality for everyone except Grim and Mandy. Billy ends up becoming a genius with this trope in full effect, Irwin is a ladies' man, Puddin is the school bully, Sperg is a nerd, and so on.
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'':
** Peridot is constantly talking in this manner. Amethyst finds it hilarious and asks Peridot what she calls various body parts:
--->'''Amethyst:''' Hey Peridot, what do you call this? ''[points to nose]''\\
'''Peridot:''' A Scent Sponge.\\
'''Amethyst:''' What's this? ''[points to eye]''\\
'''Peridot:''' Vision Sphere.\\
'''Amethyst:''' These? ''[wiggles fingers]''\\
'''Peridot:''' Touch Stumps.\\
'''Amethyst:''' This? ''[points to foot]''\\
'''Peridot:''' Gravity Connectors.\\
'''Amethyst:''' This? ''[points to posterior]''\\
'''Peridot:''' THAT'S YOUR BUTT!
** Pearl does this sometimes as well, because she's TheSmartGuy and prone to being overly dramatic.
--->'''Pearl:''' Are the shirts [[DrivenToSuicide destroying the wearer's will to continue on in this mortal coil]], thereby shutting down Beach City?!
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': [[TheSmartGuy Mr. Cat]] has the tendency to do this sometimes; for example, he refers to making somebody laugh as "activating their zygomaticus muscles". Of course, nobody understands what he's talking about, since he's SurroundedByIdiots, so he ends up having to explain it in simpler terms.
* In ''WesternAnimation/CentralPark'', Season 1 "[[Recap/CentralParkS1E5DogSprayAfternoon Dog Spray Afternoon]]", when Shampagne's mood hasn't improved, Bitsy's dog therapist suggest Shampagne should try a radical new treatment called "outdoor movement therapy", which Helen sums it up as walks.

** The [=MP3=] page at UsefulNotes/HowVideoGameSpecsWork is a great example of this. See the page history for an apology from the entry's author saying why it's so difficult to explain the inner workings of an audio codec without lapsing into {{Technobabble}}. To drive the point home, the [=MP3=] codec involves [[{{Technobabble}} discrete digital signals, pulse-code modulation, sampling frequency, modified discrete cosine transform, frequency domain, filtering, convolution, Huffmann coding, information entropy, psychoacoustic modeling, bit rate, quantization, and media streaming]].

While maintaining a strong endeavor to avoid flogging a deceased equine, err I mean trying hard not to beat a dead horse, in some cases technical jargon is necessary to be understood, but in too many cases a person doesn't consider that the audience is not that technically inclined and a simpler, although less precise description would work just as well.

'''[[Characters/IncredibleHulkBruceBanner Hulk]]:''' That's obvious, Richards!\\

** Doctor Henry [=McCoy=], a.k.a. the Beast, does this all the time. In most incarnations, it's for the joy of wordplay -- everyone he works with already knows he's a genius -- though it undoubtedly has a side effect of convincing people he's never met before that [[GeniusBruiser even mutants who look like him can possess an enormous vocabulary]]. Interestingly, in his earliest appearances in the X-Men comic, [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness he was not portrayed as particularly intelligent]]. However, Stan Lee decided his behavior too closely resembled the Thing from the Fantastic Four and [[CharacterizationMarchesOn upgraded his intelligence and vocabulary in order to set him apart]].

* In ComicBook/Dollicious Tiramisu tend to use very rare and pretentious sounding words just to stand out.

* In ''Film/TheMatrixReloaded'', the Architect's dialogue is extremely convoluted and highbrow-sounding, as if the writers deliberately mined a thesaurus for the longest synonyms they could find for every concept he's describing. Justified in that this artificial intelligence is, unlike any other AI, utterly logic/reason-based and lacking in any kind of empathy or social skills (the polar opposite of the Oracle) and uses speech as a type of IntimidationDemonstration. He does seem amused when Neo calls him on using it to avoid a direct question, saying his predecessors took longer to figure it out. Parodied so brilliantly by Will Ferrell in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x82rX-TGIBU this video]] from the MTV Movie Awards.

* ''Literature/EnchantedForestChronicles''

* Creator/GeorgeOrwell

** The entire essay [[http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm Politics and the English Language]] is a tract against sesquipedalian loquaciousness.

* In ''Literature/SpiderManTheDarkestHours'', ComicBook/DoctorStrange uses the longest words possible, much to ComicBook/SpiderMan's annoyance.

* Ronda Rousey's promo style is this, something Becky Lynch and her fans have a heyday with on twitter.

* Creator/GilbertAndSullivan

* The title of [[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/on_the_high_velocity_rotation.php this]] blog post by PZ Myers.

* In the Minecraft series ''Bookcraft'', LetsPlay/StacyPlays does "[[https://stacyplays.fandom.com/wiki/Bookcraft_Words_Of_The_Episode_List Word of the Episode]]" sessions, where she introduces an uncommonly used word OncePerEpisode to the audience and has to use the word in the episode itself. She also occasionally slips into this during her ''Mineclash'' series against her FriendlyRival, Graser.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/CowAndChicken'' has the duo being visited by their black sheep cousin, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the Black Sheep]], whom everybody treats like a troublemaker. They do so partly because they assume he's a bad person out of stereotypical expectation, and partly because [[CallingMeALogarithm they don't understand his intelligent diction and think he's insulting them]]. Cow is the only person who's able to see past the ridiculous assumptions.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'', Fireside Girl Gretchen ([[{{Meganekko}} the one who wears glasses]]) earns her "Saying a Word No One Else in the Room Knows" accomplishment patch by actually saying the world "sesquipedalian". Then there's Phineas and Ferb themselves, who turn out to be keeping a list of words beginning with "s" that kids their age don't usually say and checking them off as they say them.

* In ''Literature/SpiderManTheDarkestHours'', ComicBook/DoctorStrange uses the longest words possible, much to Spidey's annoyance.

* [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate Dr. Ludger Brink]] does this in ''VideoGame/TheDig'' to distract an alien monster from eating colleague Maggie Robbins (to no real purpose, as it cannot possibly understand English in any form). In fact, it almost backfires, as the big words prove ''equally'' distracting to player-character Boston Low. When Brink urges Low to hurry up with the rescue, he just mutters, "I'm still trying to figure out what you said."

* In the St. Augustine's ''Literature/{{Confessions}}'', the Manichees are condemned for using with their rapid-fire mixtures of strange syllables and Christian-sounding words to fool St. Augustine into thinking they speak philosophy and truth when they knew nothing.

--> [[CatchPhrase Prodigious]]!

-->"Under the impression," said Mr. Micawber, "that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road,--[[CatchPhrase in short]]," said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, "that you might lose yourself--I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way."

-->'''Gale:''' [[{{Catchphrase}} I do not comprehend.]]

* People with a Romance language (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese...) as a first language can sometimes unintentionally sound like this when speaking English. Modern English results from a combination of Germanic and Romance[[note]]mostly from medieval French[[/note]] roots. While words from Germanic roots are shorter and more common, Romance words are longer and more formal, but, since they're closer from their own language, Romance-language speakers sometimes instinctively choose them. Conversely, they often miss the point when confronted with a loquacious fictional character, wondering why, say, [[Franchise/FantasticFour Reed Richards]] reads like their butcher.

* Koffel, the alien from ''VideoGame/RealityOnTheNorm'', is sometimes depicted as speaking like this (e.g. ''Purity of the Surf'').

* In ''VideoGame/StickyBusiness'', the frog agent speaks this way when ordering stickers from you.

* One of the Kingpin's lieutenants speaks like this in ''ComicBook/DaredevilBornAgain''. Like the ''Sin City'' example above, this was ''[[SelfPlagiarism also written by]]'' Creator/FrankMiller. It predates it by a number of years, but still.

* Music/TimMinchin. It doesn't matter if he's currently singing about "[[ClusterFBomb the motherfucking]] [[AcceptableTargets pope]]", he'll still squeeze in some very eloquent words.

* [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Twilight Sparkle]] engages in this in ''Fanfic/TwilightsList'', causing Rainbow Dash to tune her out, and as a result miss out on the fact that Twilight is asking her out on a ''practice'' date, leading to Rainbow Dash believing that Twilight IS romantically interested in her.
* Minor character Hengist Rawkes in ''Fanfic/TheParselmouthOfGryffindor'' always talks like this — or at least, his portrait does. "Ron Weasley has been manhandled by a humanoid specimen entitled Sirius Black!"
* Dennis in ''Fanfic/TheLuckOfDennisStMichelViscountStokington'' does this a ''lot,'' even when [[HypocriticalHumor decrying the same habit]] in his nemesis.

It's worth noting that there is a word for the ''fear'' of long words; ironically, it's "sesquipedalophobia" often exaggerated by people into "hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia". There is an element of ArtisticLicenseLinguistics involved, as "phobia" is a Greek root, while "sesquipedalo-" is Latin[[labelnote:*]]In fact, Greek lost the chw, qu, and gw sounds around 1000 BC; that's why we say "phobia" rather than "phogwia".[[/labelnote]] See also ScaryScienceWords.

* ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'''s Kyon often falls into this during his narration. Yuki will often provide one or two syllable answers to rather important questions, be prompted (usually by Kyon) into giving longer answers, and the longer answers end up in this incomparable form.

* ''Film/NoStringsAttached'': Used quite a bit in the jokes of the doctors.

--> "It is not necessary," he said, "that the principals here be in possession of the facts concerning their case, for their acts will ultimately accommodate history with or without their understanding. But it is consistent with notions of right principle that these facts—to the extent that they can be readily made to do so—should find a repository in the witness of some third party. Sergeant Aguilar is just such a party and any slight to his office is but a secondary consideration when compared to divergences in that larger protocol exacted by the formal agenda of an absolute destiny. Words are things. The words he is in possession of he cannot be deprived of. Their authority transcends his ignorance of their meaning."[[labelnote:Translation]] “You lot do not need to know all the facts of your situation but it’s important that there is some third party, such as this Sergeant, who has all of the facts, even if he does not know the significance of the facts he has been given.”[[/labelnote]]