You Can’t Say Much With the Most Used Words
Posted on February 4, 2013
Filed Under Communication, The Writing Life | Leave a Comment
Technical writers are always being urged to take the time to be clearly understood. And that’s a noble aim. But if it should mean writing only in the most commonly used words, the first thousand of them, no more, it probably can’t be done. “Thousand,” itself, is not one of the “ten hundred most common words.” How do we know that, what kind of quirky excursion have we been on this time?
Well, we came upon the Up-Goer Five Text Editor. Phys.org notes that it’s been written by Theo Sanderson, a geneticist, after a comic strip named to describe the Saturn V rocket (“rocket” isn’t one of the ten-hundred words either). Having come upon the free editor, bloggers Chris Rowan and Anne Jefferson set up a Tumblr blogger page called Ten Hundred Words of Science. Phys.org advises that “they’re asking scientists to describe what they do for a living using Sanderson’s text editor. The results are thought provoking, interesting and quite often humorous.”
So give it a try yourself. The value of your effort will likely be greater appreciation for the bundling of our most common words – and how children learn by using them. We gave it a try and came up with an impromptu thumbnail essay on spartan expression:
“Well, now, here we’re going to try something that will be hard for most of you – in fact, not possible.
“We were going to try writing about what we do without using the name of our field. But, as it says, it’s not very easy to write with the most used words, and them only. So we quit.
“Try it yourself. It’s hard to explain a hard idea using only the most used words, ten hundred of them. You might be so glad to leave Up-Goer that you will use all kinds of words to be happy again. Sad, sad how little you can say in the most used words; it takes a lot more time to try to explain something in words that are used a lot. Oh, dear.”
Clear enough? – Doug Bedell
Comments
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
Recently
- Presentations With Forethought
- Technical Writing’s Lineage – Surely It’s Deeper than Digital
- At the Holidays, Twitting Amazon
- Successful Cookie Baking – From Mom, an Acknowledged Expert
- Slides for a Tech Writer’s Craft
- Digital or Not, Be Clear
- Being Watchful About Digital Designs…
- When Proposals Don’t Click, Keep Making Them Anyway
- Like a Good Gardener, Help an Enterprise Keep Itself Current
- We’re Leaders All, And Need to Think That Way
Categories
Archives
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
Blogroll