Learn English – the opposite of “dumb down”

antonyms

I am trying to figure out what would be the opposite of "dumb down" as in "I can dumb down this presentation". In this example the presentation is too complex and needs to be simplified for the target audience, but what about the other way around, I can't say "complex up", and whilst "smarten up" is valid it doesn't work in this context.

Best Answer

I'm not sure there is a simple established phrase that complements "dumb down." As you've mentioned in some earlier comments to previous answers, verbs like complicate or complexify don't do the trick – the goal is not to make the presentation more complicated, the goal is to make it less simplistic. Those two aren't quite synonymous.

I can't think of a good single word or established idiom, but I think I'd probably say it something like this:

I can dumb down this presentation, or I can make it speak to the expert.
I don't want to dumb down this presentation, I want it geared it more toward the expert.

Adding the word expert is key, I think. According to Wikipedia, dumbing down is:

the deliberate oversimplification of intellectual content within education, literature, cinema, news, video games and culture in order to relate to those unable to assimilate more sophisticated information (emphasis added)

In regards to a presentation, I think we generally "dumb down" information to make it more digestible for novices and neophytes; therefore, the opposite would be to design the presentation for experts, rather than for the masses.

I looked up expert in a thesaurus, just to see if there was a better word that could be used. Several words were listed (including authority, pundit, maestro, virtuoso, master, wizard, connoisseur, and aficionado), but the only one I thought might be a worthy alternate candidate was specialist:

We don't need to dumb down this presentation; it's designed for the specialist.

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