National Geographic reports that the 2006 Ig Nobels Prize for Literature went to Daniel Oppenheimer, a psychologist at Princeton University, for his research, "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly."

As National Geographic explains, Oppenheimer's research involves adding

complexity to existing samples of writing, inserting needlessly long words into a chunk of text. His aim was to assess readers' reactions to the excessive prose. "A majority of undergraduates admit to deliberately increasing the complexity of their vocabulary so as to give the impression of intelligence," Oppenheimer writes in his study. But in the experiment, readers judged the authors of the overwrought texts to be not-so-bright.

Be sure to read more about the Ig Nobels for a good laugh (for instance, see the ZDNet coverage). I didn't realize that the sound Matt shared with us previously which adults have trouble hearing was designed as a teenager repellant. LOL