Two comments:<p>I think there's a bit of "words for the sake of words" in the formal. I don't necessarily equate formal with verbose or trying to use big words.<p><pre><code> [Casual] What do guys do to show that they like a gal?
[Formal] What do guys do to demonstrate their affinity for women?
</code></pre>
Other than "a gal -> a woman" this is just adding pretension. (And on second reading I realize that somehow "guys" is not modified to men but gal is to woman)<p>2. I can see an application for this concept as a way to make writing clearer and <i>less</i> pretentious (not less formal).<p>For example, in English, Germanic words often sound less fancy than their latin equivalents [0]. That, combined with sentence construction (not-unpleased, clause order, etc) one could have something to reign what we learned in high school english.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Germanic_and_Latinate_equivalents_in_English" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Germanic_and_Latinat...</a> - it's not always true, but look at answer -> response, aware -> cognizant as examples.