Smart Vocabulary: Choose your words wisely
By Aaron M. Muhly and Daniel Simonyi
“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing
is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words
because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short
ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening
clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who
committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be
even more embarrassed.” Stephen King, On Writing
WHEN YOU work in a foreign language, it’s
natural to be concerned about the sophistication of
your vocabulary. Nobody feels comfortable about
repeating the same words over and over.
To address this concern, you can try to mix things
up by sprinkling some synonyms into your writing.
While this approach might make your writing a
little more exciting for readers, it could also end up
creating a style that readers find obnoxious.
(Further, in our opinion, business professionals
shouldn’t waste time on searching for synonyms,
but rather they should focus on enhancing the
content, clarity, and efficiency of their writing.)
However, if you are concerned about the level of
your vocabulary, this article should guide you
towards choosing synonyms that will please your
readers. In particular, you will discover:
•
a free software tool for discovering words
that you might be repeating too much
•
a simple system for differentiating between
good and bad synonyms
•
another free software tool for saving time
on choosing the “right” synonyms
Identifying Repetition: Wordcounter.com
Since writers are usually the worst at judging the
style of their own writing, you shouldn’t rely on
your instincts about word repetition. Instead, if you
want to see how you should expand your
vocabulary, hire yourself an English teacher or save
time and money with WordCounter.com.
Wordcounter.com is a free and simple tool for
identifying the words that you repeat the most. To
use the software, you just need to (i) copy and paste
your writing into the counter window and (ii) press
GO. The software will immediately list the most
repeated words in your writing. (You can choose
from the top 25, 50, 100, or if you are unbelievably
obsessive, 200 words.) Not only will you receive a
list of your top words, but you will also be
informed of the number of times you repeat your
words.
For example, for this article, we have received the
following top six words:
•
word (21)
•
synonym (20)
•
write (14)
•
reader (12)
•
time (9)
•
use (7)
Choosing Synonyms: Basic categories
Once you have a list of frequently repeated words,
it’s time to develop your vocabulary. For example,
let’s assume that you have repeated the verb
“report” 99 times in your document. When you
look up this word in a thesaurus, you will probably
come up with around 50 synonyms. That means
you should use all of those synonyms in your
report? Right???
©2013 Muhly Kft.
Wrong. If you plug all of those synonyms into your
writing, your reader is definitely going to be
annoyed. Instead, you should focus on selecting
just a small number of synonyms that match your
intended style. In particular, you should pick the
synonyms based on whether you want the reader to
think your writing is clear (and simple) or
sophisticated (and complex).
First of all, if you want your readers to be
impressed by the clarity of your writing, you should
focus on words that are close to the basic level of
categorization. This cognitive science category
refers to words that readers find familiar and can
easily conjure up into a mental image. For example,
the word “pen” falls near the basic level of
categorization, but the word “writing implement”
does not.
On the other hand, if you want readers to be
impressed by your sophistication, you should look
for words that are far away from the basic level of
categorization. For example, in this case, you
would prefer “writing implement” or, better yet,
“stylograph”.
For your convenience, we demonstrate below these
categories with synonyms for “report”.
Clear
Sophisticated
announce
disclose
describe
enunciate
inform
promulgate
present
set forth
tell
give an account of
Not only does Thesaurus.com help you identify
synonyms but it also helps you with organizing the
synonyms into relevant categories. For example:
• Common: You can have the software isolate
the most common synonyms. These words
should be very familiar and clear to your
readers.
• Level of Complexity: You can increase the
level of complexity to focus on synonyms
that will sound more sophisticated to your
readers.
• Length: You can also use the software to
focus on either shorter or longer synonyms.
You can use this setting to not only adjust
your complexity but also the physical
length of your writing.
As a final tip, we highly recommend that you avoid
synonyms you have never seen used before.
Although these words might feel sophisticated to
use, you will probably just end up pissing off your
reader by forcing him/her to look up your words.
Legal Notice
The authors hereby state, publish, and declare that
they have absolutely no relationship, whether
financial or otherwise, with the above websites.
About the Authors
Daniel Simonyi works for Freeway
Entertainment. But he is still training for his
December debut as a chess boxer.
Save Time: Thesaurus.com
Let’s imagine that you don’t have time for
categorizing your synonyms based on clear vs.
sophisticated. In this case, we recommend that you
use Thesaurus.com. (This site is a free, yet
sophisticated, search engine for synonyms.)
Aaron M. Muhly is the trainer for
Customized English, which customizes
English writing courses for business
professionals. For more information about
Aaron and his training, go to
www.customized-english.com.
©2013 Muhly Kft.