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Consider the following related cases:

(1) Sometimes one encounters a lengthy academic article (with, say, 60 pages) with so many (possibly nested) structural parts and details that one cannot easily follow it, and see how the final/main conclusion is reached.

(2) Sometimes, this method is employed deliberately (edit: ... as a debating technique, much like Gish gallop, ...) to cover a flaw in the argument by exhausting the reader's attention. After all, there will be fewer people who bother to study, understand, and evaluate a lengthy, obscure argument compared with a short, elegant one.

Are there English words/phrases/idioms for the last cases?

Note: in contrast with this question, my question pertains academic contexts (not political ones), and the focus is on many structural parts (not just torrents of words).

Let me give an imaginary example: Suppose the article is dedicated to prove the Pythagorean theorem. It discusses such things as nature of lines, essence of triangles, axiomatic systems in general, ancient Pythagoreans, etc. at length, to distract the reader and make them forgot about the main topic, namely the Pythagorean theorem.

Kaveh
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    Synonyms for hot air, bunk, twaddle, drivel,... I doubt there are short terms unique to each (or any) of your three "sub-categories". – FumbleFingers Apr 04 '22 at 11:47
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    To add another related word: rambling. However, there are some differences between their meaning and what I am looking for. – Kaveh Apr 04 '22 at 12:03
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    More than one question, in disguise, here. Is there a term for someone who takes a long time explaining simple things? is one duplicate. What is the name of the tactic that politicians use to bury people with a torrent of words? is another. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 04 '22 at 13:15
  • Suggestion for someone who talks a lot but says little ... There are already far too many. obscurantism / filibustering / prolix / rambling / bloviate / dodging/avoiding the issue / beating around the bush ... all already here. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 04 '22 at 13:21
  • I would like to see an example of (3). Why would any writer bother to do that? Also, many comments are for spoken not written English. – Lambie Apr 04 '22 at 13:27
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    It is unreasonable to expect a questioner to somehow guess the terms in which their question might have been framed in order to search for duplicates that might answer their question to some extent. Why not just answer the question? That is how knowledge progresses, not by reference to recondite hidden sources that are rarely completely relevant. Leave open. – Anton Apr 04 '22 at 13:29
  • @Anton Just get rid of the multiple question and the duplicate CV reasons? Why not go to another website where they're not bothered about searchability, avoidance of prolixity, bloviation? – Edwin Ashworth Apr 04 '22 at 14:07
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    "Obfuscation" is where a speaker or author deliberately makes something unclear in order to hide or divert from the truth. – davidlol Apr 04 '22 at 14:17
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    @EdwinAshworth I always regret this difference of viewpoint but guess it's an inevitable part of the productive tension of the site. The "3" questions are merely varied statements of the same notion. My main point is that, to know that duplicates exist, a questioner must formulate their question so as to pre-qualify their search for duplicates. Why should they? You from your extensive knowledge may know of duplicates but how is a relative novice to do it? If you ask me why Normal and Boltzmann distributions are related, I would not close you by saying you should know about Gamma functions! – Anton Apr 04 '22 at 14:29
  • @Anton I close-voted, not down-voted. Addressing the question. It's nothing to do with whether OP should know about previous related / duplicate threads. You're arguing against site recommendations, not interpretation. // 'each of the above-mentioned cases' and 'I would like to see an example of (3)' (Lambie) agree with my plurality view. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 04 '22 at 14:49
  • Does this answer your question? What is the name of the tactic that politicians use to bury people with torrent of words? – Mitch Apr 07 '22 at 17:28
  • Now What's the word for unnecessary complexity? and single word for adding too many things and caused confusion give some one-word answers. // I've never met serious students who write so as to obfuscate the declared aim. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 08 '22 at 18:30
  • Idiom for explaining something too thoroughly looks at idioms. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 08 '22 at 18:36
  • You can start with synonyms of "distract" as your question mentions; sidetrack is a good start. "The students sidetracked their teacher into talking about her hobby." I am still unclear about your intended usage. Please provide an example sentence to fit the word. – NVZ Apr 08 '22 at 18:36
  • I added an example in the last edit. The grammatical usage depends on the part of speech of an answers. – Kaveh Apr 08 '22 at 18:41
  • @EdwinAshworth, as explained in the comments on the answer you refered to, 'Can't see the wood for the trees' is about the reader's confusion, not a writer's misbehavior. – Kaveh Apr 08 '22 at 18:51
  • 'Explaining ad nauseam', etc. are more general than what I asked. Related questions, though useful to know about, are not duplicates. – Kaveh Apr 08 '22 at 18:52
  • Ah; this is 'blinding people with science' now. I haven't got time to search for duplicates including this, but it's been covered. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 08 '22 at 19:14
  • @EdwinAshworth, I'm afraid they are different. 'Blinding people with science' is about using complicated (but not necessarily lengthy) language. I've been bothered discussing the difference between what I've stated in my question and the questions (and worse than that: even the answers) that are even remotely connected, to keep the question open. I wonder what the benifit of a large QA website would be if this were required for any new question. – Kaveh Apr 08 '22 at 19:44
  • The question already has a number of answers. How good these answers are is debatable, but the best way to find out is to reopen the question (and then keep it open) so that the competition for the best answer can continue. Keeping the question closed unfairly privileges the answers that happen to have been posted before the closing. – jsw29 Apr 08 '22 at 19:46
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    @EdwinAshworth, stretching site recommendations beyond their intended purpose would work against what you're 'bothered about[,] searchability, avoidance of prolixity, bloviation' – Kaveh Apr 08 '22 at 20:05
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    It seems that the question seeks a term that will express some sort of criticism of such arguments. Whatever the term may be, in applying it, one would have to take into account that the writing conventions differ greatly from one academic discipline to another, and that what is described here may, in fact, be expected in some disciplines (annoying as it may well be to those outside them). – jsw29 Apr 16 '22 at 15:51

6 Answers6

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TL;DR

: too long; didn't read — used to say that something would require too much time to read

It was 70 years ago that poet W.H. Auden published "The Age of Anxiety," a six-part verse framing modern humankind's condition over the course of more than 100 pages, and now it seems we are too rattled to even sit down and read something that long (or as the Internet would say, tl;dr—for "too long; didn't read"). — Alex Williams

— Merriam Webster

k1eran
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In some cases, particularly your third, the adjective obscurantist and its noun obscurantism may be helpful.

[Merriam Webster](

Obscurantism:
a style (as in literature or art) characterized by deliberate vagueness or abstruseness

Collins

If you describe something as obscurantist, you mean that it is deliberately vague and difficult to understand, so that it prevents people from finding out the truth about it.

You may also find meandering helpful:

Cambridge

moving slowly in no particular direction or with no clear purpose:
a long meandering speech

The general quality of what you describe is that it is prolix, or marked by the relevant noun, prolixity

Merriam Webster

prolix: 1 : unduly prolonged or drawn out : too long
2 : marked by or using an excess of words

All of which makes the argument abstruse

Cambridge
abstruse:
not known or understood by many people.

Anton
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  • Thanks for your patience while I developed this answer. Time to stop, I think. – Anton Apr 04 '22 at 12:32
  • No. OP wants '[an] idiom for a lengthy argument which obscures the main points' but puts in a condition that it must be scientific-argument- rather than political-debate-orientated (countering the duplicate claims with suggestions prolix, bloviate, snowing under, filibustering, // probably words such as 'labyrinthine', tortuous' {at adjective to describe the intentionally slow US legislative process}). – Edwin Ashworth Apr 09 '22 at 16:09
  • @EdwinAshworth you overlook the PO’s mention of debating. You also overlook that these words apply more generally than in political discourse. I am well familiar with academic prolixity, scientific abstruseness, obscurantist ecobabble and meandering logical development. – Anton Apr 09 '22 at 17:16
  • The answers above are also answers given at the cited duplicates. The condition 'it must be scientific-argument- rather than political-debate-orientated' is the only thing saving it from being a clear duplicate, and answers just answering merely the broader question are bloat. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 10 '22 at 14:55
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bore (one) to death

To cause one to be extremely bored, to the point of distraction, frustration, or irritation.

Today's lecture bored me to death
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms

bore to death

Also, bore to tears or bore stiff or bore the pants off. Weary someone through extremely dull talk or uninteresting action. For example, Sam was bored stiff by the opera but didn't dare to admit it, or Carol bores the pants off me with her constant talk of remodeling, or His books bore me to death. All four expression convey the idea of such exasperation that one dies, weeps, stiffens with annoyance, or has one's trousers removed. The verb bore has been used in this sense only since about 1750, and its etymology is unknown. The amplifications were added between about 1850 and 1950.

See also:

bored to distraction
bored out of (one's) brains
bored out of (one's) skull
bored to tears distraction
bored silly
bore (one) stiff
bored stiff
American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms

DjinTonic
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For Case 3, consider bloviate (v) or blovation (n):

bloviate, v. To talk at length, esp. using inflated or empty rhetoric. [OED]

In US English, the word is most often used in a political context, referring to politicians who talk at great length to obscure the fact that they are not saying anything of substance; it also has a connotation of someone who "loves the sound of their own voice". In principle, one could also apply the word to cases 1 and 2; this would be an extended usage but would probably not be misunderstood.

As noted by @Lambie in the comments, these words mainly apply to speech and not to writing. If I said that an author was "bloviating on their blog", it would be understandable but not really idiomatic.

Michael Seifert
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(1) Sometimes one encounters a lengthy article (with, say, 60 pages) with so many parts and details that one cannot easily follow it, or see how the final/main conclusion is reached.

OED:

Rambling (adjective and participle)

2. intransitive. To wander freely in speech or writing; (now more usually) to write or talk in an aimless, incoherent, or inconsequential fashion, without an ordered sequence of ideas. Also with on (adv.).

1710 J. Swift Jrnl. to Stella 21 Oct. (1948) I. 66 My pen is apt to ramble when I think who I am writing to.

(2) Sometimes, even the author themselves, is lost in such an argumentive maze.

OED

labyrinthine, adj.

2. figurative. Intricate, complicated, convoluted; inextricable.

1840 T. De Quincey Style in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. July 13/1 To follow the discussion through endless and labyrinthine sentences.

1865 Sat. Rev. 7 Jan. 16/1 [Browning] is apt to entangle the reader in labyrinthine thoughts.

(3)Sometimes, this method is employed deliberately to cover a flaw in the argument by exhausting the reader's attention. After all, there will be fewer people who bother to study, understand, and evaluate a lengthy, obscure argument compared with a short, elegant one.

A form of this is called “snowing under” (a reference to millions of random sheets of paper blowing past the reader)

2020 Making Social Welfare Policy in America: Three Case Studies Edward D. Berkowitz • Page 53 In one internal Social Security Administration (SSA) memo describing a meeting with the Bureau of the Budget, an SSA bureaucrat wrote his commissioner that Ball “snowed them under with lengthy answers to short questions.

Greybeard
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I like bloviate, above, but also considered: obfuscate - to render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.

J_Hat
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