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Showing off your vocabulary in articles...yay or nay?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Jim Luther Davis, Jun 6, 2014.

  1. albert77

    albert77 Well-Known Member

    As I always say, eschew obfuscation. ???
     
  2. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

  3. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    [quote author=doctorquant]
    I think we're all capable of recognizing that there's a mutatis mutandis facet to pretty much any analogy being made 'round here.

    If you wanna go all reductio here, I can play that game, too.
    [/quote]
     
  4. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    I'm not sure ... does mutatis mutandis have something to do with mutilation?
     
  5. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    I think he was one of the bad guys in "Shaft's Big Score."
     
  6. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    I try to gird myself at all times for unseen hazards.
     
  7. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    To cross thread, how many Howard Cosell words does Olney use in DD's thread?

    How many Cosell words are used by Riley when he was in his prime?

    Grand vocabulary might make you seem truculent.
     
  8. Liut

    Liut Well-Known Member

    Agreed - for newspaper. Otherwise, pursue magazine work or write a book if you want to show off.
     
  9. 3_Octave_Fart

    3_Octave_Fart Well-Known Member

    Don't use a word if you don't know what it means.
     
  10. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    The ones who do that think it's all about them. It's not.

    There are a lot of studies out there that show simplified readability attracts more readers than the linguistic gymnasts do.

    Journalism is NOT about "writing." First and foremost, it's about informing - we should use language that allows us to inform the most people in the most effective way. From the lowest common denominator up.
     
  11. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    But a person who writes "ostensibly" isn't sitting there thinking, How can I impress people? It's just the word that pops into his head as he is writing.

    There may be some line where what you're saying comes into play. I remember reading "suzerainty" in a George Will column, in one of my first exposures to him, and thinking "What a knob." But the words in the OP, and most of the words that tend to bring out these discussions, are way below the bar. I'd doubt anyone is going to a thesaurus for a word like that.
     
  12. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Whatever you do, don't use niggardly.
     
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