Some people fill every silence with words. Garrulous individuals chatter on about trivial matters, and loquacious speakers narrate every detail of a tour or story, regardless of whether their audience is listening. At the opposite extreme, the laconic speaker answers in as few words as possible, and the taciturn person answers with a nod or a grunt, revealing little through speech. The perspicacious observer notes that both poles offer useful contrast: one is the social burden of too many words, the other the mystery of too few.
Beyond volume, words can be dressed up or dressed down. Bombastic and grandiloquent speakers inflate ordinary thoughts with pompous, high-sounding language that often conceals a lack of substance, while florid prose piles on intricate ornamentation at the expense of clarity. By contrast, eloquent speakers express themselves fluently and persuasively, and lucid prose is so clear and easy to follow that confusion dissolves. Cogent arguments are logically convincing, and the didactic style, while earnest, can become exhausting when the lesson never ends. Sometimes, however, clarity is deliberately avoided: circumlocution wraps a simple idea in many unnecessary words, equivocation uses ambiguous language to dodge commitment, and prevarication involves outright evasiveness. Mendacious speakers lie, while disingenuous ones pretend ignorance they do not actually have. The mildest substitutes are euphemisms, which exchange a blunt or harsh word for a softer one. To mollify an angry listener, the euphemism may be preferable to blunt truth, while impugning a witness's credibility requires the sharp edge of direct accusation.
The same idea can also be made deliberately opaque. Abstruse reasoning is hard to grasp, and obfuscation actively confuses the listener to hide meaning. Opaque language refuses to yield to analysis, while arcane or esoteric ideas are restricted by nature to specialists, and recondite subjects lie outside common knowledge. Pretentious writers try to impress by affecting greater importance than they possess, and the perspicacious reader learns to look past performance. Euphemism and obfuscation have their opposites too: the candid speaker is refreshingly frank, and candor itself, the quality of open honesty, earns the respect that decoration cannot. Pungent remarks cut sharply through the haze, and a diaphanous veil of language lets only fragments of meaning through. Even an outward style can mislead: a calm expression may belie the panic churning beneath it. Whether the goal is to inform, persuade, evade, or impress, every choice of style leaves a fingerprint on the message.