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Thursday 27 October 2016

Synonyms

There is a school of thought that says that in writing, you shouldn't repeat words. As a result, when you read something authored by someone brought up to believe that, they make liberal use of synonyms.

So, for example, if you read an article about Trump (and that's a good source of amusement), you'll find that the Republican party is often referred to as  the GOP.

There's three problems with this. The first is that when I read an article sprinkled with synonyms, I have to pause at each one to translate it. The second is that maybe some people don't know that the term you're using is a synonym, and think that it means something different. But the third is the worst - it's when the writer thinks they're using a synonym, but actually the word has a subtly different meaning, and the reader comes away from the piece with a complete misapprehension of what the writer was trying to say.

Please avoid using unnecessary synonyms. And words that mean the same thing.

2 comments:

  1. GOP is a TLA - we use them everywhere!

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  2. Theater (Theatre) of the Living Arts is the first thing that comes up when I search for "TLA". The acronym finder at http://www.acronymfinder.com/TLA.html shows your intended meaning about 20 definitions down, assuming it means "Three Letter Abbreviation", which is actually wrong and should be expanded to "Three Letter Acronym".

    This is actually a very good (and very amusing to me) example of exactly what the good doctor is talking about.

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