Too Many Big Words

I have been reading almost exclusively on my Kindle lately. It is easier to read at night and fits in my purse so I can take it anywhere. These books are the free ones that I hear about from a number of different websites.

Since these books tend to be self published or receive very little editing if published by a publisher, they tend to use too many big words. Not that I mind having my vocabulary expanded and enjoy learning new words. That isn’t my issue.

My issue is that these authors tend to use a thesaurus too much and will pick a less common word to describe something when a simple work would suffice. This is especially irking when used in conversation. Most people don’t use words such as “terminus”  instead of “point” or “iconoclastic” instead of, well, that word didn’t fit in the sentence it was in so I don’t have an example for it. In a recent book I read about Pakistan, a character used the phrase “wizened, dull-eyed automatons”. Really? They couldn’t have just said “aged robots”?

The fortunate thing about reading these types of books on my Kindle is that I can tap on the word and the definition comes up. Unfortunately, while I read the last two books, I was tapping practically every other page. After a while, my poor finger started to hurt!!

My advise to new authors is to keep it real. Use language that is actually used in every day conversation. Well, I would appreciate it if it was kept clean but that is because most people I know don’t use the word “fuck” on a regular basis.

I unequivocally am filled with the profundity of appreciation that you have hearkened to my diatribe on the overuse of ginormous words in a completely unnecessary fashion. It is so sincerely appreciated!