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having passionately dicked around with words for many years, i've come to find that big words don't flummox people nearly as much as convoluted structure. it's actually possible to use some gargantuan words and still be easy to read. you just need clear sentences to deliver them

having thought about it, here's a fun challenge: try to write and send a hard-to-read tweet using only short and simple words. it would need, in my view, a stuttering sort of voice, a cruel sense of pace and order, too many commas and colons, the word "and" over and over again,

one of the fastest ways to make your writing cleaner: 1. do a search for "and" 2. look at all the times you repeat yourself unnecessarily eg imagine if the first sentence in this tweet said "fastest and best". it ~feels~ more comprehensive, but it's needlessly harder to read

this requires being decisive about what you mean. it's often tempting to say "this and that" because you want to sneak in both words. but saying two things is seldom even half as good as saying one thing well. so pick the more important thing. all communication is lossy