Unexpected words: when a word choice slows readers down
A surprising word can bring a sentence to life or stop a reader cold. This guide shows how to tell the difference and how to prepare readers for the words you keep.
Why it matters
A few surprising words keep prose alive. Several close together, especially terms the reader has not seen explained, slow reading and can bury the point.
What you can do
Define a term the first time
Give a short plain-language gloss the first time a specialist term appears.
Ask yourself: Would a first-time reader know this word? Have you told them what it means here?
Show an example
BeforeThe results reflect regression to the mean.
AfterThe results reflect regression to the mean: unusually high or low scores tend to move toward the average when measured again.
Set up the unusual word
Build context before a striking word so the reader is ready for it.
Ask yourself: Does the sentence before prepare the reader for this word, or does it arrive cold?
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BeforeThe meeting was a palimpsest.
AfterEach meeting rewrote the last one's decisions without erasing them. The record became a palimpsest.
Use the plain word when the rare one adds nothing
Keep a rare word only when it says something the common word cannot.
Ask yourself: What does this word say that a more common one would not? If the answer is nothing, is it earning its place?
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BeforeThe committee will effectuate the change next month.
AfterThe committee will make the change next month.
Space out the hard words
Avoid stacking several unfamiliar terms in one sentence; give each room.
Ask yourself: How many demanding words share this sentence? Could each have more room?
Show an example
BeforeEpistemic asymmetries reify institutional hierarchies.
AfterSome people know more than others. Institutions can turn that gap into a fixed hierarchy.
When to leave it as it is
The word is the precise term your readers expect, or a deliberate image you want them to notice.
See it in a real text
Prosemetry raises this in paragraph 6 of First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln. Open the sample at that paragraph to see the note as a writer would, read-only.
See it in your own draft
Prosemetry reads your Word document and marks the passages where this happens, so you know where to look. It doesn’t rewrite anything; the revising stays yours. Free to try, no account needed.
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