The simplest word isn’t always the right one

Written By Hannah Whitfield

And finding the right word isn’t always simple

(But it is worth it)

My boyfriend sent me a screenshot of a message from his neighbours’ WhatsApp group. 

“The fire survey cherry picker has arrived. No shambling about naked today”, it read, with a picture of a cherry picker operating outside their block of flats. 

“*Claire seems like a good laugh”, he wrote.

I agreed, already thinking of how I could engineer a situation for us to meet.

When writing commercial content, people need to understand what you’re trying to say, and to understand it easily. It’s basically the first thing we edit for.

We’re told to write simply, to write something an 8-year old would understand. To write how you’d talk to a friend.

To avoid overly-complicated words so you don’t disrupt the reader’s flow, even for a nanosecond.

But here’s where the ‘always use the simplest word’ mantra falls down: 

Shambling is just so utterly, utterly perfect.

(I didn’t even know it was an actual word at the time, but I still knew it was perfect) 

And if the message had ended ‘no walking about naked today’ (the simplest option) then: 

  • My boyfriend probably wouldn’t have sent me the screenshot 

  • I wouldn’t have forwarded It on to a friend I thought would enjoy it too

  • I wouldn’t be able to remember the message, word for word, over a month later

  • I wouldn’t have added the name *Claire (not her real name, although a lovely one) to my list of baby names, such is my appreciation for this total stranger’s use of language 

There are around 170,000 words in use in the English language, and the perfect one for the job really does exist. 

Become obsessed with finding it, every single time. Trust your instincts, and trust your readers to stick with you if it’s a bit ‘out there’.

Because disrupting their flow isn’t automatically a bad thing. In a haze of content obsessed with being ‘simple’, you have the opportunity to delight and shine, even just for a nanosecond.

Surely it’s worth a shamble?

(Juuust don’t go the full ‘Baby Kangaroo Tribbiani’).

Hannah Whitfield