Don’t think about big words or small words—think about which particular word you mean.
I think this is good advice for most people who are used to being forced to use big words by school systems, but I personally follow a different version of this.
I see compression as an important feature of communication, and there are always tradeoffs to be made between
Making my sentence short
Conveying exactly what I want to say.
And sometimes I settle with transferring a “good enough” version of my idea, because communicating all the hairy details takes too much time / energy / social credit. I’m always scared of taking too much of people’s attention or overrunning their working memory.
There are certainly always tradeoffs, but sometimes clarity can help save time/social credit simultaneously, since in a lot of cases making someone truly use their own brain is a bigger ask than just reading another sentence or two.
I think this is good advice for most people who are used to being forced to use big words by school systems, but I personally follow a different version of this.
I see compression as an important feature of communication, and there are always tradeoffs to be made between
Making my sentence short
Conveying exactly what I want to say.
And sometimes I settle with transferring a “good enough” version of my idea, because communicating all the hairy details takes too much time / energy / social credit. I’m always scared of taking too much of people’s attention or overrunning their working memory.
There are certainly always tradeoffs, but sometimes clarity can help save time/social credit simultaneously, since in a lot of cases making someone truly use their own brain is a bigger ask than just reading another sentence or two.