Replacing Phrases With Single Words

Ok, I’m guilty of this: Circumlocution. It’s the use of many words when one will do.   There’s a good list in the article, and we could probably fill a book with more.

I do GET that readers’ attention spans are shorter, that we need to be more clear and more concise.  But at the same time … there’s something so elegant about wordy phrases and near-legal terms to express ideas. Maybe it’s because it forces the brain to work a little harder, to create synapses between words and ideas? I know I’m not the only one, am I? Who else likes the big words, the lengthy terms, the endless paragraphs within parentheses? Writers, poets!! And readers, too, perhaps?  

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