There’s some fine nuance to finding that balance, though. If the word I want to use is less well-known, but better fits what I’m trying to say (or is significantly shorter than “going the long way around”), then I’m more likely to use it. I think most everybody should strive to communicate as clearly as possible, and that may entail learning the occasional new word. Intentionally “talking down” can be insulting, as well as a step towards Idiocracy if we all start doing it together.
I get that it’s appropriate in certain situations, or for certain audiences, but I try to stretch my brain to keep it learning (and therefore more sharp), and I hope most others strive to better their communication skills as well. IMHO it’s necessary both to succeed, and to evolve.
Yeah, I think of it kind of like protocol negotiation. If I speak a technical protocol my conversation partner doesn’t, my options are either to get them using my protocol, I switch to a common protocol, or we don’t speak. Sometimes, if the topic is important enough, the first and third options are preferable. Other times, particularly in casual conversation, I opt for the second one. I still try to be precise, and that can mean an occasional specialty word and accompanying definition, but it’s costly to the conversation and if I’m not careful I can get bogged down in explaining minutia instead of getting to my point. Maybe it’s more like treating new concepts economically rather than treating jargon as a discrete protocol, though I tend to think of jargons as protocols, you can kind of add them into a common protocol a la carte. They’re just computationally expensive for people absorbing them if they’re also trying to follow a conversational thread at the same time, and too many can blow the budget and cause people to tap out, so I try to add only the ones I really need.
Interesting analogy. Basically, yeah - you’ve got to tailor how you speak to the specific topic, participants, and goals you have for what you’re trying to convey. There’s no overriding universal truth, and adaptability certainly makes for a good communicator.
Paragraphs help. Please, for the sanity of your readers use paragraphs (appropriately).
I’ve gotten critiques that I write in walls of text, occasionally, but that just looks like a single normally-sized paragraph to me. Maybe I’m just old. I am using a desktop browser on a 4k monitor, so maybe that has something to do with it. Just eyeballing it it looks like several mobile screens worth of text, maybe it should be broken up for mobile viewers. I guess there’s a paragraph break for the last two sentences… but it’s seven sentences total. Is that too much for one paragraph?
I measure what should constitute a paragraph by what I’m talking about. If I move on to another point that’s not directly part of the point I’ve been talking about — even though they’re likely directly related — I tend to start a new paragraph to make it easier to follow along with what I’m talking about, as well as make it easier to tell one point from another.
There’s some fine nuance to finding that balance, though. If the word I want to use is less well-known, but better fits what I’m trying to say (or is significantly shorter than “going the long way around”), then I’m more likely to use it. I think most everybody should strive to communicate as clearly as possible, and that may entail learning the occasional new word. Intentionally “talking down” can be insulting, as well as a step towards Idiocracy if we all start doing it together.
I get that it’s appropriate in certain situations, or for certain audiences, but I try to stretch my brain to keep it learning (and therefore more sharp), and I hope most others strive to better their communication skills as well. IMHO it’s necessary both to succeed, and to evolve.
Yeah, I think of it kind of like protocol negotiation. If I speak a technical protocol my conversation partner doesn’t, my options are either to get them using my protocol, I switch to a common protocol, or we don’t speak. Sometimes, if the topic is important enough, the first and third options are preferable. Other times, particularly in casual conversation, I opt for the second one. I still try to be precise, and that can mean an occasional specialty word and accompanying definition, but it’s costly to the conversation and if I’m not careful I can get bogged down in explaining minutia instead of getting to my point. Maybe it’s more like treating new concepts economically rather than treating jargon as a discrete protocol, though I tend to think of jargons as protocols, you can kind of add them into a common protocol a la carte. They’re just computationally expensive for people absorbing them if they’re also trying to follow a conversational thread at the same time, and too many can blow the budget and cause people to tap out, so I try to add only the ones I really need.
Interesting analogy. Basically, yeah - you’ve got to tailor how you speak to the specific topic, participants, and goals you have for what you’re trying to convey. There’s no overriding universal truth, and adaptability certainly makes for a good communicator.
Paragraphs help. Please, for the sanity of your readers use paragraphs (appropriately).
I’ve gotten critiques that I write in walls of text, occasionally, but that just looks like a single normally-sized paragraph to me. Maybe I’m just old. I am using a desktop browser on a 4k monitor, so maybe that has something to do with it. Just eyeballing it it looks like several mobile screens worth of text, maybe it should be broken up for mobile viewers. I guess there’s a paragraph break for the last two sentences… but it’s seven sentences total. Is that too much for one paragraph?
I measure what should constitute a paragraph by what I’m talking about. If I move on to another point that’s not directly part of the point I’ve been talking about — even though they’re likely directly related — I tend to start a new paragraph to make it easier to follow along with what I’m talking about, as well as make it easier to tell one point from another.