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tangentialone
2008-11-19 03:22 am UTC (link)

Any writer worth their salt will tell you that precision of language vastly outweighs potential reader ignorance.

Well, you just have to consider whether your intended audience is composed of:

1)people who will know the word in question,
2)people who will look up the word in question, or glean the meaning from context, or
3)people who will be angry that you made them feel stupid.

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	fools_game 2008-11-19 04:00 am UTC (link)
	And then there's the school of literary academia based around the implied reader, which is not that writers write to a particular audience, but that the text itself suggests the appropriate audience. Usually those from category 1 or 2. (Those in category 3 are still on easy readers at age 35.) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	tangentialone 2008-11-19 04:13 am UTC (link)
	You know, I think I like that school. It's so sensible! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	fools_game 2008-11-19 04:18 am UTC (link)
	Don't write down to your audience. Your audience are the ones smart enough to understand you/dumb enough to not get frustrated by your condescension/dorky enough to get your references! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	mary_mac 2008-11-19 02:31 pm UTC (link)
	The Terry Pratchett philosophy of 'my daughter was old enough when she was eight, my mother won't be old enough when she's eighty' philosphy of age-rating, then? (Reply to this)(Parent)

wrongly_amused
2008-11-19 06:48 am UTC (link)

I feel that kind of feeds into the purpose of the piece. I wouldn't use serious academia in something intended for common review. Polysyllabic words can become the unnecessary, sloppy parts of writing in the wrong context. But using one four syllable word, especially one with a very specific and intended meaning, in an otherwise fairly commonly worded application is not over the top.

Perhaps effectiveness of writing is more what I'm getting at. If it was a justifiable application in the context of the piece, the responsibility then falls on the reader to understand.

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eleutheria
2008-11-20 02:32 am UTC (link)

I was going to say something similar to this. I have a big issue with people who use jargon in posts intended for the everyday reader, I do think that's designed to make laypeople feel stupid and undereducated. (And for some terms, "just look it up" doesn't work. I spent two months reading things from my library to understand one person's jargon-laden post about postmodernism, Derrida, and critical theory, and still didn't get it.) But basic vocabulary, things that can be quickly looked up and understood, doesn't count as "jargon".

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