If someone provides too many details on something, basically making it more difficult to extract the actual information asked for, what is a good expression to describe this? Is superfluous adequate or too harsh? Would it make a difference whether the too-much-information was on purpose or inadvertently?
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Too much detail! or the idiom Can't see the wood for the trees! – TrevorD Jun 04 '13 at 10:27
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1What is the context of your description? (e.g. is it for a referee report in an academic setting, is it an informal complaint to your friend, etc.) @TrevorD: I am used to seeing the idiom with "forest" instead of "wood". I guess this is American vs. British for you. – Sam Lisi Jun 04 '13 at 11:44
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@SamLisi Yes. I'd never heard it with 'forest', but several references give 'forest' as the N.Am. & Australian version: EnglishClub; FreeDictionary; Cambridge Dictionary. – TrevorD Jun 04 '13 at 11:55
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1@SamLisi The context is a technical report which randomly scatters the relevant implementation details in a forest of citations of guidelines which actually are superseded by another guideline previously agreed upon. Something like both sides know the report is supposed to be about squares and yet the report first introduces basic geometry, then mentions the square's side length and suddenly discusses the existence of circles before discussing the square's colour. – Tobias Kienzler Jun 04 '13 at 12:24
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1@TrevorD Indead, though more precisely I'm searching for needles in a bunch of haystacks – Tobias Kienzler Jun 04 '13 at 12:28
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3@TobiasKienzler Indeed +1. Thanks for the added info. Personally, I wouldn't use "superfluous". I'd suggest something like too much irrelevant and incorrect detail obscuring the key issues. – TrevorD Jun 04 '13 at 12:41
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@TrevorD The detail is not exactly incorrect, but rather a comparative remark that would better be put in the appendix if considered "cannot-omit" by the author... "obscuring the key issues" is a great formulation, maybe a single word is just not enough to convey this – Tobias Kienzler Jun 04 '13 at 15:02
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1In Internet slang, just tmi is sufficient. That's a good clue that it's an idiom in its own right. – Matt Jun 11 '13 at 04:08
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@Matt True, but unfortunately I cannot just reply with "tl;dr". Though I wish I could... – Tobias Kienzler Jun 11 '13 at 08:30
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Possible duplicate of What is the term describing the condition of being oversaturated with information? – Mari-Lou A Mar 15 '19 at 18:20
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If someone 'provides too many details on something actually making it difficult to get the needed information out' a word that could be used is 'verbose'. This is an adjective which means too wordy or using too many words as in a write-up or a speaker addressing an audience.
Please see my comments below first.
My second offering: circumlocution (n.) - the use of unnecessary wordy and indirect language. The adjective is circumlocutory. An antonym of a circumlocutory expression would be a forthright expression.
Charlie Brown
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Hm, isn't being verbose about attempting to be helpful by providing information basically considered well-known? In my case the additional "information" is not only too much but even misleading – Tobias Kienzler Jun 10 '13 at 08:31
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So you're saying "verbose" already includes a "too" and saying "too verbose" would be pleonastic? – Tobias Kienzler Jun 11 '13 at 07:08
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On the other hand, "too verbose" might be adequate to convey the message :-7 Wait a second - "convoluted (and verbose)" is probably the best choice, thanks! – Tobias Kienzler Jun 11 '13 at 12:02
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I'd like some cool jargon word like 'sealioning' (which this doesn't quite fit) where you ask for some needed information, but they reply with so much, you can't figure out what is relevant or not, or how to start evaluating it, etc. – runrig Mar 08 '24 at 17:20
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You could say information overload. That expression has found its way into some dictionaries. One of them (Collins) defines it as:
information overload (n.) the situation when someone has so much information that they are unable to deal with it
Another (CDO) says:
information overload (n.) a situation in which you receive too much information at one time and cannot think about it in a clear way
The phrase seems to have gained traction since the 1970s, and the phenomenon is discussed in some textbooks as well. Here's just one quote out of many:
Thus, the danger of “information overload” is real; if any user were to receive all, or even a significant fraction, of the total amount of data contained in the system, he would be hopelessly swamped. (from Strategic Appraisal: The Changing Role of Information in Warfare, Rand Corporation, 1999)
J.R.
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+1, though in this case it'd even better be called misinformation overload, since the additional "information" is not only irrelevant but misleading – Tobias Kienzler Jun 10 '13 at 08:30
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1I suppose, although information overload is a relatively standard term, and misinformation overload is, well, just not used all that much. – J.R. Jun 12 '13 at 21:23
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1Indeed :-7 It's interesting how close information overload and too much information are - the singularity is nigh! – Tobias Kienzler Jun 13 '13 at 04:55
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1@Tobias: That Ngram is uncanny. I'd even postulate that the two terms grew in prominence as the problem became more widespread (due to the rise in technologies). – J.R. Jun 13 '13 at 09:15
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Oh dear, adding dystopia darkens the future - were I to wear tin foil hats I'd imply a correlation here... – Tobias Kienzler Jun 13 '13 at 10:18
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:-7 So you are saying the yet-to-exist technological singularity causes fax machines to vanish, and once that goal is achieved we are doomed? I see there's a lot of fun to have with this, though an inverse search ("search for similar probability n-grams") would make this simpler... – Tobias Kienzler Jun 13 '13 at 14:26
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@Tobias: Actually, I was saying quite the opposite. It's just words fluctuating with time. Read whatever you want in the tea leaves, and forget my earlier compliment on your research. – J.R. Jun 13 '13 at 18:49
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Sorry, I got a bit carried away at this game... But the similarity of the information overload and too much information probably really point at an increasingly occurring problem... – Tobias Kienzler Jun 14 '13 at 06:13
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When you supersaturate somebody with information beyond their immediate requirement it is translated into an information overload. You end up making a mess of the whole matter because the recipient probably will even lose whatever vague initial understanding of the subject they had.
This is almost a normal occurrence when a postgraduate science student is asked to teach science to an eighth or a ninth grader. It is indeed an innocent curse because the elder is after all trying to help out the kid but unfortunately ends up messing it up.
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Welcome to English.SE! Supersaturate is an interesting alternative, thanks. By the way, if you want to avoid using he/she, they can also be used in singular, see this question – Tobias Kienzler Jun 11 '13 at 08:28
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thank you very much for the edits... Iam a new member to stack exchange.com and i can afford to spend one hour a day on the forum. – user25641 Jun 14 '13 at 11:41
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You're welcome. By the way, you can make sure that one specific person is informed about a comment by writing @username (first three letters are usually enough). Please take a minute to read the about site (you'll get a shiny badge!) on the differences to a forum (you may already have noticed that entries are sorted by votes, not by date). And the help is quite useful as well. I hope you enjoy StackExchange! – Tobias Kienzler Jun 14 '13 at 11:56
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Of the Wiktionary synonyms for superfluous (excessive, extraneous, extra, pleonastic, supernumerary, surplus, unnecessary, extravagant), extraneous actually sounds best, since it means both "not essential" and "not belonging to". But please note I'm no native speaker, so the choice may be sub-optimal.
Tobias Kienzler
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In case the "too much information" were actually "too many words" pleonastic (basically meaning redundantly redundant repetition of repeated repetitions...) might be a good fit. – Tobias Kienzler Jun 04 '13 at 10:23
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"pleonastic"is a specific type of"tautology"and definitely does not mean"too many words"- that would be closer to"circumlocutious". This is an example of a pleonasm:"round circle". A circle, by definition, is round, however"round"and"circle"aren't synonymous but you are repeating information - redundantly, maybe, but not always. – James Stott Jun 04 '13 at 12:11 -
1"Periphrasis" (n.) or "periphrase" (n.) is another possibility, closely in line with "circumlocution." See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/periphrasis?db=dictionary. Considered a rhetorical trope, it can be used deliberately for effect, but I have a feeling the person you are describing, by implication, is unaware of his/her periphrasis. By the way, I have a good friend who is a master of periphrasis. Ask him a simple question, and a half hour later he still hasn't answered my question but has given me more information about X than I care to know! The opposite: succinct. – rhetorician Jun 04 '13 at 12:32
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@JamesStott In how far does redundancy definitely not mean "(too) many words"? I agree that it doesn't necessarily imply that - given your example I can imagine using "round circle" to emphasize that the mere "circle" shown recently was quite elliptic (as in "My hand-drawn circle is not as wiggly as yours" (TBO it'd be the other way around)). But some redundancy ("Are you really, really sure you want to shut down your computer after clicking on the shutdown button?") is too much – Tobias Kienzler Jun 04 '13 at 12:36
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@rhetorician Yes, I think the person who wrote that report did not periphrase (nice word btw, thanks) on purpose. Although intention is sometimes difficult to deduce... Incidentally, I suspect anyone using a phrase like "long story short" was actually periphrasing on purpose. – Tobias Kienzler Jun 04 '13 at 12:42
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@TobiasKienzler: You're welcome. Just make sure not to confuse periphrase, a noun, with paraphrase, a noun and also a verb, which as a verb means to "put into other words" for the sake of simplifying or making something easier to understand. "Allow me to paraphrase what you've just said. You're saying that not all Belgians speak Flemish, right? Is that a good paraphrase?" To which the person says either yes or no or "Well, with certain qualifications . . .." – rhetorician Jun 04 '13 at 12:53
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@tobias - are you adding answers to the question you had originally asked? I recently found this site so maybe I'm looking at it wrong but it looks like you asked the question above. Then it looks like you gave the last answer above (regarding wiki or something). Not that I take issue with that; I'm a live and let live kind of fellow. Best of Luck! THanks My First Best Answer - that I've seen:-) – Charlie Brown Jun 11 '13 at 12:06
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@Charlie I see, in this case: welcome to English.StackExchange! By default you're seeing answers ordered by votes (i.e. "best" first, less good at the bottom), not by age. I posted my answer before any others were there in order to show what I have already found myself instead of wasting somebody else's time for finding the same things. Here's the faq-entry on self-answers by the way, users are encouraged to answer their own questions if they later find a useful answer - the question should be answered for everyone happening to pass by – Tobias Kienzler Jun 11 '13 at 12:26
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(Also check out the site's about - it's a very quick tour on the differences to a forum, plus you get a shiny badge) – Tobias Kienzler Jun 11 '13 at 12:36
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1@tobias thank you very much. I randomly stumbled upon this site andreally think it's a great idea. I have yet to explore the many other categories. Well I did get into the philosophy page and then realized if I sit and philosophize I will never find a job!! great site, great idea for a community driven Q & A that seems to attract a more intelligent and conscientious group than you would on most areas of the good ol World Wide Web ;-) – Charlie Brown Jun 11 '13 at 12:39
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@CharlieBrown You're welcome. I love the SE format, no more annoying yeah, me too, also buy v!@gra "answers". And there's basically a site for everything – Tobias Kienzler Jun 11 '13 at 12:42
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While I think @TobiasKienzler has some good alternative suggestions, this suggestion of 'esoteric' may or may not fit, depending on what kind of details they are.
From the additional context found in comments, it suggests that 'esoteric' isn't quite on target because the extra information is not necessarily difficult to understand or appreciate in its own right. I would be more inclined to go with a word used in comments to describe it, 'superseded' as it more aptly describes why the information is extra.
1 a : designed for or understood by the specially initiated alone
1 b : requiring or exhibiting knowledge that is restricted to a small group ; broadly : difficult to understand2 a : limited to a small circle
2 b : private, confidential3 : of special, rare, or unusual interest
JustinC
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Interesting suggestion, unofficially I'd consider calling the thing an esoteric discussion indeed. But I'm afraid in an official reply I should avoid that... – Tobias Kienzler Jun 11 '13 at 08:30
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You can, if casual, ask them to ''cut to the chase'' or for ''the bottom line'' or if more formal, request they ''provide a summary.''
eup.
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