Forum Moderators: not2easy
I think the users of most part of the world are non English, as they have their own languages.
Should we use such heavy words?
What is your opinion?
--The audience. If you believe there's an audience or set of customers in your industry/niche who would welcome a site with simpler English than your competitors use, why not offer it to them? [ETA: Paras, I've just read some of your other posts, and see that you're interested in writing content for a variety of sites. But I'd think this could still be a selling point for using simpler English.]
--The subject. In some technical areas, it would be difficult to use only simple words, although people involved in those areas should be able to understand the technical terminology. Also, the use of simple English would be less important on some sites than on others. For example, I'd assume that most visitors to a site centered around books published in English would have a pretty good grasp of the language. [ETA: Again, in writing for a variety of sites, this would be something to think about.]
--Your own level of comfort with the language. I've been a copy editor for 25 years (yes, some of us do still exist), as well as doing my own writing, and I can tell you that simple correct English beats more advanced but incorrect English every time. In fact, simple correct English usually beats more advanced correct English. The only time a longer word is better than a shorter word is when the longer one says exactly what you want to say better than the shorter one does. Using big words for the sake of using big words is bad writing, whether you're writing for native English speakers or not. [ETA: This is true whether you're writing for your own site(s) or someone else's.]
Over 20 years ago, on my first copy editing job, the paper's city editor suggested that every time someone wanted to use "very," they should substitute "damn," and see if they really meant the statement to be that strong. If not, they didn't need "very." I thought this was sage advice; it wasn't until some years later I learned it was a twist on ol' Sam's idea.
8-)
one who is either rich or grievously injured, not especially bright, and principally concerned with sex, litigation, and profit
please don't tell me Mark Twain said it first.
So, okay, suppose you're writing to greedy dummies. Or suppose you're not. Simplifying prose is almost always good. Even intelligent readers appreciate a clear message.
But that doesn't mean shy away from big words. The problem with clarity, I think, stems more from big sentences than it does from big words.
People often guess at what unfamiliar words mean, and they do fine. If everything else is written well, the reader extrapolates the meaning, gets the jist.
Convoluded sentence structure, however, turns people off. By page three of the same sentence, you're not going to have many readers left.
Yet another great way to bore readers is with a limited vocabulary. Give your readers the benefit of the doubt, even if they're new to English, that they can do words.
That's the thing about language: people learn new words all the time, and even make them up, a lot.
Here's an example: I know about 10,000 words in Spanish. Great. Problem is, there's a comparatively itsy bitsy handful of grammatical rules, and I still haven't mastered them. Probably never will.
But if I pick up a dictionary and start memorizing, I can easily have 10 more words in an hour.
So that's that. The magic of tongues. Point is: it won't hurt to load up your writing with good, big words. People will like it.
Now, what I'm about to say may seem like total voodoo, but I still think it's worth saying: search engines will like your big words too--and I'm not necessarily talking about keywords.
Really, when writing for search engines, I sometimes think that every time I throw in a new, unique word I'm actually stocking up on spider-nip, creating the impression of more intelligent writing and therefore helping to get the page in on 'quality.'
This could have something to do with LSI, expansion of key concepts, possibly keyword phrase variation, appropriate reduction of keyword density or that room full of gold coins in Super Mario Land. Who knows. It's just kinduva feeling at this point.
Any thoughts?
However, I am still little bit confused.
My aim is to make content understanble to everybody, not to teach languange and make them to use dictionaries.
I am not at all enemy of big words, but, certainly of when used unneccessarily.
Thank you good people.
...I'm actually stocking up on spider-nip, creating the impression of more intelligent writing and therefore helping to get the page in on 'quality.'
I agree completely that convoluted sentences are at least as big a problem as too much verbosity. Passive voice is a major culprit there.
Paras, sorry if we've gotten too far off the track. Your last post really says it all. There's nothing wrong with using a big word if it helps to make things clear. Sometimes if you find the right "big word" to say exactly what you want to say, it can take the place of 4 or 5 smaller words, which isn't a bad thing. Whatever it takes to make your writing as clear as it can be is the right way to go (unless, say, you're writing Ulysses or something ;-) ).
For example: the network "paradigm"
We could have write "model" "pattern" "standard" etc.
However, "Paradigm is a word who could compel non-English users to refer dictionary. Who, has such time?
Use of heavy vocablury, though not completely be avoided but should be restricted.
Sometimes a few heavy words may appeal to certain people and make your content look more professional. One should however be very careful in overusing such words and try to keep the writing as simple as possible.
Afterall one writes to be read and understood.
