Michael Kjörling

352 reputation

bio	website	michael.kjorling.se
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visits	member for	1 year, 8 months
	seen	May 10 at 11:41
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	352 reputation	bio	website	michael.kjorling.se	visits	member for	1 year, 8 months
18 badges		location			seen	May 10 at 11:41

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Nov 23	comment	Effective ways to enrich your active vocabulary? @Aerovistae Perhaps I'm missing it, but I don't see any mention of what your intended target audience is in the question. For all we know, you might just as well be writing a children's book.
Nov 23	comment	Effective ways to enrich your active vocabulary? That's my point. It's just not practical to learn every detail - be it the C++ STL, Java class library, or English word. So you turn to documentation, a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a theusaurus, or whatever fits the need. But if in programming you write code which the majority of people can't make heads and tails out of without resorting to documentation, you have failed one of the basic tasks of programming, which is conveying your intent to other humans. If you are using unusual constructs (in writing or programming), there had better be a good reason or you will annoy people.
Nov 23	comment	Effective ways to enrich your active vocabulary? "My intended audience never has been and never will be those who are irritated by new words." So what is your intended audience? What kind of writing are you focusing on? Knowing that might very well help in answering the question, and it certainly can't hurt.
Nov 23	comment	Effective ways to enrich your active vocabulary? Who has said that you "should stop at the limit of a high school vocabulary"? I work in IT (programming), I read plenty of books far from all of which are written in my native tongue, and I use words in professional contexts nearly every day which many high schoolers would have little or no idea what they mean. I'll use a thesaurus if I feel the need. I don't know every word, every meaning, or every synonym. Nor do I know every detail of every technology I use professionally. Recognizing your limitations and turning to reference works when needed IMO is the professional thing to do.
Nov 23	comment	Effective ways to enrich your active vocabulary? In principle I agree with @Tannalein. However, I also don't think using a thesaurus is bad practice; you just have to be careful about which words you choose from it. If you find yourself using the same word multiple times in short order, a thesaurus can help you find alternatives that might enhance the flow of the text (and, as a side effect, "enrich your active vocabulary"). That doesn't mean it's appropriate to use words that a majority of your audience is likely to not know the meaning of, unless you want to make a point (perhaps for example, showing an overbearing nobility character.)
Oct 24	revised	Citing foreign language sources (Swedish) in MLA7 bibliography? Improved formatting, removed tagline
Oct 24	suggested	suggested edit on Citing foreign language sources (Swedish) in MLA7 bibliography?
Oct 22	awarded	Yearling
Oct 14	comment	“I have/am” what are other short ways to not repeat this in a cover letter? +1 for even just the last sentence.
Oct 12	comment	Deciding the setting: real or invented? +1 for research if you use a real place. Someone who reads your book is bound to be familiar with the area, unless it's a really uncommon read (which probably isn't what you want) or you place the story in a really out-of-the-way place (and even then there's no guarantee, particularly these days when even small, generally unknown, niche authors can find an international audience). And if it's an actual place that the reader is familiar with, even small mistakes are going to break suspension of disbelief, and that is going to show through in their response to the book.
Oct 12	comment	ISBN - is it possible to have one and a title before publishing? Your publisher likely has purchased a block of ISBNs already, so they can simply take one out of the lot and use it for the book you are working on. An individual author doesn't have a bunch of unused ISBNs floating around on their desk.
Sep 26	comment	Is it okay to call the reader's target audience stupid? The OP isn't suggesting to insult the reader, but rather is asking about "insulting" the reader's (programmer's) target audience (users).
Sep 26	awarded	Commentator
Sep 26	comment	Is it okay to call the reader's target audience stupid? @DeeMac I saw that after I posted the comment, but too late to edit my comment to fix it.
Sep 25	comment	Is it okay to call the reader's target audience stupid? While you're at it, please make sure to not make such mistakes like writing "it's" when you mean "its". I work as a software developer myself, and English is not my native language, and that kind of linguistical errors really annoys me because they make me backtrack a few words with a "'make it is function so clear'?!".
Jul 20	awarded	Critic
Jul 6	awarded	Citizen Patrol
Jun 29	accepted	Coming up with names for species in fiction?
Jun 29	awarded	Scholar
Jun 29	comment	Coming up with names for species in fiction? I like the suggestion to "just use something". After all, search and replace is there for a reason. Since I had to choose one answer to accept, though, I picked Roaring Fish's answer (which I liked slightly better), and upvoted this.