If you’ve read my last two posts, you know that I’ve drawn heavily from “8 struggles every communicator understands” by Kristin Long. She’s done a heck of a job of curating some wonderful sources, and I’m not done with reading it all yet.
This post presents a list of 24 words and their simpler alternatives. (A big thanks to Laura Hale Brockway, a Texas writer, who posts at ImpertinentRemarks.
Here is her list:
- Advantageous — helpful
- Ameliorate — improve
- Cognizant — aware
- Commence — begin, start
- Commensurate — equal
- Consolidate — combine
- Deleterious — harmful
- Disseminate — issue, send
- Endeavor — try
- Erroneous — wrong
- Expeditious — fast
- Facilitate — ease, help
- Inception — start
- Implement — carry out
- Leverage — use
- Optimize — perfect
- Prescribed — required
- Proficiencies — skills
- Promulgate — issue or publish
- Proximity — near
- Regarding — about
- Remuneration — reward, payment
- Subsequently — after or later
I know there are words on this list that make you squirm. My all-time unfave, which Ms. Brockway mentions in her post, is utilize. On the other hand, I’ve grown accustomed to it. I substitute use frequently, though I find that utilize often sneaks back in during the edit/comment cycle. And honestly, I’m substituting use out of a sense of defiance, because when I see utilize, my gut says that it belongs in the kind of writing I so often do. As Ms. Brockway puts it, “Other times, complex words cannot be avoided due to the subject matter.”
So, we soldier on in content creation land, doing our best every day to write clear, simple prose that keeps our readers awake and absorbing what we need to share with them.
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