4 ms·

When something feels easy to read, it's not just a matter of using simple words. To maximize scanability, you need to use a mix of long and short words, and als

When something feels easy to read, it's not just a matter of using simple words. To maximize scanability, you need to use a mix of long and short words, and also mix long and short sentences, until you achieve a kind of "flow". Famously, Dovlatov's prose (in Russian) avoids having words that start with the same letter in the same sentence, which is unnoticeable to the reader but makes the words just fly off the page. Another trick I've found is making sure each word has unambiguous function. Here's some examples from other comments: I had this impression recently while reading the Akbarnama, which is a sort of court-approved biography of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, written by his Grand Vizier -- Was the Emperor written, or was it the biography? There are some cases in which your work demands a certain level of precision -- It could've continued like "in which your work demands are excessive", so you don't know if "demands" is a noun or a verb until you read on. That "simple" writing lasts longer is disproved by many works of literature that have made their way to us through history -- It could've continued like "that simple writing is not so simple", so you don't know if "that" is a conjunction or determiner until you read on. These are small things, but somehow the more I notice them, the clearer my writing becomes.

keiferski 6y ago
Was the Emperor written, or was it the biography? You skipped the first half of my sentence, which makes it pretty clear who wrote the book. At least, I think it does. In any case, you did make me realize the last clause is awkwardly written, so thanks! I amended my original comment.
- a1369209993 6y ago
  > > Was the Emperor written, or was it the biography? Based on the other examples, I think they meant, at the point where you have up to "written", do you expect the sentence to continue as above, or as something like: > I had this impression recently while reading the Akbarnama, which is a sort of court-approved biography of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, [who was] written as the greatest leader the Mughal empire ever had. Although if so, I don't think that one's a very good example, as suggested by the need to editorialize in the "[who was]" above.
bobbiechen 6y ago
I think (linguistic) parsing fits your description of "function" here - like the opposite of a garden-path sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
jxramos 6y ago
> avoid having words that start with the same letter in the same sentence. I remember when I was a teenager I used to get frustrated that English words had so many homophones and overlaps and synonyms. I thought why can't every concept and idea have its own distinct word? Why would we clutter up the language with fuzzy overlaps, overloaded terms, and the need to disambiguate so frequently? The disambiguation melts away with experience as you begin to sharpen your contextual locating skills. But I recall at one point I realized that one of the great things that is afforded by the language is that you have slack for adding phonetic variation to your sentences and they, for lack of a better word, sound less dumb. When something is repeated too much in a sentence or paragraph somehow it affords less clarity, and comes off childlike in some way. There's something about it that you can't quite twist out another facet on a subject through plain repetition. I never matured that idea any further, but it seemed like a fascinating insight into the operational workings of English.
the_pwner224 6y ago
Along the lines of what you point out, I've noticed that the word 'read' often causes misparsing - but you don't realize until you've read on for a bit more and realize that the sentence doesn't make any sense. At that point you read the sentence twice again and realize that it was using the other meaning of read. This is something that I've run into commonly enough that I try to write 'read' only for the present tense 'read a book', and 'redd' for the past tense 'redd the email.'
- young_unixer 6y ago
  Why not "have read" instead?
selimthegrim 6y ago
Seeing as Akbar was supposedly illiterate, the first interpretation would be doubly hilarious.

keiferski 6y ago

Was the Emperor written, or was it the biography? You skipped the first half of my sentence, which makes it pretty clear who wrote the book. At least, I think it does. In any case, you did make me realize the last clause is awkwardly written, so thanks! I amended my original comment.

a1369209993 6y ago
> > Was the Emperor written, or was it the biography? Based on the other examples, I think they meant, at the point where you have up to "written", do you expect the sentence to continue as above, or as something like: > I had this impression recently while reading the Akbarnama, which is a sort of court-approved biography of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, [who was] written as the greatest leader the Mughal empire ever had. Although if so, I don't think that one's a very good example, as suggested by the need to editorialize in the "[who was]" above.

bobbiechen 6y ago

I think (linguistic) parsing fits your description of "function" here - like the opposite of a garden-path sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

jxramos 6y ago

> avoid having words that start with the same letter in the same sentence. I remember when I was a teenager I used to get frustrated that English words had so many homophones and overlaps and synonyms. I thought why can't every concept and idea have its own distinct word? Why would we clutter up the language with fuzzy overlaps, overloaded terms, and the need to disambiguate so frequently? The disambiguation melts away with experience as you begin to sharpen your contextual locating skills. But I recall at one point I realized that one of the great things that is afforded by the language is that you have slack for adding phonetic variation to your sentences and they, for lack of a better word, sound less dumb. When something is repeated too much in a sentence or paragraph somehow it affords less clarity, and comes off childlike in some way. There's something about it that you can't quite twist out another facet on a subject through plain repetition. I never matured that idea any further, but it seemed like a fascinating insight into the operational workings of English.

the_pwner224 6y ago

Along the lines of what you point out, I've noticed that the word 'read' often causes misparsing - but you don't realize until you've read on for a bit more and realize that the sentence doesn't make any sense. At that point you read the sentence twice again and realize that it was using the other meaning of read. This is something that I've run into commonly enough that I try to write 'read' only for the present tense 'read a book', and 'redd' for the past tense 'redd the email.'

young_unixer 6y ago
Why not "have read" instead?

selimthegrim 6y ago

Seeing as Akbar was supposedly illiterate, the first interpretation would be doubly hilarious.