Why I like short words

Winston Churchill said: “Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.”

He was right.

Short words are best because they don’t get in the reader’s way. They are familiar.

This makes them easy to understand and easy to spell.

They are also easier to pronounce

Most short words in modern English come from Anglo-Saxon, not Latin, roots.

They mainly describe real-world objects and actions, not abstract concepts.

Help understanding

Short words get straight to the point. Use them. Forget the long ones, they get in the way of understanding.

The problem with this idea is that it has become a cliché. That doesn’t make it any less true.

Long-winded writing is tiring for the writer. It’s worse for the reader. Before long, readers drown in a sea of long-words.They have to read sentences or paragraphs over and over to decode them. The meaning gets lost.

A couple of tricks I’ve learnt. First, use a thesaurus to find better word choices. That often means shorter word. There is an excellent thesaurus that will suggest shorter words if you enter a long one.

Bookmark it now.