McDonald, P. B. (1946). Obscurity, pomposity, and ornateness. In P. B. McDonald, Personality and English in technical personnel (pp. 155-166). New York, NY, US: D Van Nostrand Company.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/14621-015
The student who wishes to improve his English usually wants to know what general characteristics of literary style he should cultivate. In reply to this natural question, many textbooks of rhetoric evade the issue by saying that "style depends upon personality" and that each individual should develop the style that is natural to his particular temperament. Such advice is better than suggesting that the novice imitate Mark Twain or Winston Churchill or Ruskin, but it is negative advice and leaves the student to proceed much as he did before. In general, a writer has the choice of two principal literary styles. They are the ornate, pompous style, and the simple, concise style. The simple, concise style is best for most individuals. Such advice sounds easy to follow, but it is not. A vast amount of good would ensue if writers would try to be simple and concise. What a benefit to humanity it would be if the legal profession would decide to use understandable English instead of the distorted and verbose expressions that it inflicts upon the public. Likewise, many of the headaches that assail students poring over their textbooks are the consequence, not of their slowness to learn, but of the inability of the authors of the textbooks to express what they have to say in clear and simple language. Many hard lessons have been caused by bad English. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)