Re: When the thesaurus attacks...

["M Rassmussen" <mrassmussen -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Thanks for the responses.  I should add that Co-Worker A and I are on very 
good terms, but we don't always agree with each other's editorial decisions. 
 In this case, she thinks I'm being too nitpicky about her choice of words. 
 (For those coming in late: "invoke" and "relocate.")  I told her I'd get 
some feedback, and she agreed to change the words (and several other 
hoity-toity ones) if the majority thought it was a good idea.

My argument is that the training package's audience is skilled but not 
necessarily sophisticated.  They're likely not people who sat through a 
three-hour class on SAT or GRE vocabulary, and while I'm sure they could 
infer the meaning of "invoke" from the sentence's context, I think it's bad 
style to put the user in the position of running for a dictionary.

I asked my 19-year-old cousin, who isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, 
if she knew what "invoke" meant, and she had no clue.  If even one person 
isn't familiar with the word, I think it's reason enough to use a word that 
everyone knows (e.g., "start," "run," or "open"), if at all possible.  God 
knows, it would be that one person not familiar with the definition who 
pokes out an eye and sues the company: "But I thought 'invoke' meant to 
stick a sharp object in my cornea."

Keep it simple, shithead.  That's what my News Editing prof always said.  
(Imagine a West Virginia native who looks Amish and curses a blue streak.)  
I was a journalism major, which, quite frankly, meant I learned to write for 
the lowest common denominator (i.e., readers of "The NY Post").  Unless one 
is writing a paper on Chromatin Remodeling in Oligodendrocyte Development, I 
think it's fair to keep the fancy, five-syllable words to a minimum.

I guess I answered my own question, didn't I?  Oops.

-Michelle

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