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What reading style do you consider more tedious to read, A) short, concise, and precise, but using non-layperson vocabulary, B) using layperson vocabulary, but it's longer, drawn out, and not precise? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've seen a lot of people on here be teased for difficulty expressing themselves. Either people complain "you're using big person words to describe mundane things" when they're aiming for precision or "woah, we don't need that damn wall of text" when they're aiming for clarity. It's like people just want to complain.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I don't think poor clarity is tightly coupled to vocabulary. Poor clarity often comes from extra words and poorly organized text.

"John walked to the grocery store"

"The man known in his building, but not throughout the entire city, as John, took it upon himself to walk the winding streets of Brooklyn on foot until he reached a open storefront that sold mostly, but not exclusively, groceries"

The latter is pretty limited in vocabulary but is a mess.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Honestly, I don't think the second one is a mess (except punctuation). I think it just conveys - or at least suggests - that something out of the ordinary is happening. It takes mundane things and makes you question them, given the extra attention given to the normal things like a name or place. Sounds like John maybe isn't his real name and maybe he's going to this store for something other than groceries.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

You're partially right. "John left out the front door, turned right, and walked down 3 blocks to the Whole Foods at the corner of 32nd Street, it's by the McDonalds on your right. If you hit the Shell station you've gone too far. Let me write it down to for you. Do you need a map?"