We don’t have basic, actual accessibility accommodations for people with disabilities in public life yet writers are constantly being scolded to “drop the big words to reach as many people as possible.” You can’t make art accessible by creating illiteracy; you can only create misery and compliance. - ThreadSky

lola.nebula.tv • 5 days ago

We don’t have basic, actual accessibility accommodations for people with disabilities in public life yet writers are constantly being scolded to “drop the big words to reach as many people as possible.” You can’t make art accessible by creating illiteracy; you can only create misery and compliance.

Comments

squareandplumb.bsky.social•5 days ago

Also, so many folks feign intellectual depth by citing strunk and white or saying things like “brevity is the soul of wit.” Clarity is good in writing, but not at the expense of accuracy and completeness.

anarchicaesthete.bsky.social•5 days ago

There's meeting people where they are and there's cutting everything down to pablum to enable an abandonment of *learning* and development. The latter is far too common in education spaces these days.

anarchicaesthete.bsky.social•5 days ago

Getting closer and closer to screaming every time I hear yet another academic librarian use student preference for tiktok or social media for information as an excuse not to push them past discomfort with *reading* the academic writing of whatever discipline they're studying.

odetoayellerhonda.bsky.social•4 days ago

To reach people who have never been devoted readers (of fiction, because real elegance is invisible in non-fiction, mostly, or it won't reach print), more talent and effort are inevitably required. It's a worthwhile challenge to all, to seduce with a benevolent deliberateness.

kraftium.bsky.social•4 days ago

When I write my scripts I'll think to myself "damn I sound kinda pretencious using 'nebulous' instead of just calling it vague or unclear" (or something to this effect)

But then I remember I like how the word "nebulous" sounds and I'm going to use it cos its fun and it makes me happy :D

piltdownwoman.bsky.social•4 days ago

Yeah, this kind of attitude just lowers the bar more and more over time.

12tone.nebula.tv•5 days ago

Also just, like, sometimes there's not a simple word for a thing because it's a specialist concept? I do my best to explain them when they come up but sometimes I have to use big words because those are the words that exist.

lola.nebula.tv•5 days ago

big words are the words that exist!!! exactly!!

4gabriel.bsky.social•5 days ago

All of this 👆👆👆👆👆 comforting people in their ignorance with more ignorance doesn’t help them move forward.

hawkeyguy.bsky.social•5 days ago

Both of you're spot on. I'd add tht particularly in today's society, we have access to a dictionaries instantly. If there is a word tht one doesn't understand, l thy can look it up. I do this all the time & im well educated🤷‍♂️ A secondary plus, it helps us become more literate if we do this. A win-win

cheekyredhead.bsky.social•5 days ago

I’m dyslexic yet I was reading at a college level in 6th grade. If I didn’t understand something I was reading I asked someone, my parents, my teachers, librarians to explain it to me. To this day, at age 54, if I don’t understand something I ask. Please don’t dumb down your writing.

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