Not a dig at you, but I tend to use $5 words when a normal word would suffice. Even though the obscure words usually express my thoughts more precisely than common words do, they do a worse job of conveying understanding, since people often do not know the word and infer an incorrect meaning from context.

I try to communicate at a level where the intended audience can easily understand me. This is also partially out of laziness. I don't like having to repeat myself.

I'm not sure if this comment thread is a parody of itself.

That was at least part of my intent.

Me either!

"My verbosity is a shortcoming. This is something I work on improving."

That may be too brief. It doesn't quite convey the entirety of my intent. It'll do, however.

"I'm bad at speaking simply, but I'm trying to do better."

That's not too bad.

"I am working at being more concise."

Maybe, "I am working on brevity."

Related, I am working on this as I've been asked to write a book.

The Strunk and White admonition is "Omit needless words," which I always considered an excellent lead by example...

Thanks. I will take that with me as I continue to work on my book. This isn't really the thread for it, so I'll stop here.

> Related, I am working on this as I've been asked to write a book.

If this topic interests you I recommend this book on crafting sentences written by the mother of the famous "Edward Tufte" (one of the most influential designers in the history of software):

https://www.amazon.com/Artful-Sentences-Syntax-as-Style/dp/0...

I've read a number of writing books and I find the key to good writing comes down to writing good sentences. It's also a critical part of being succint, only second to trimming the non-essential from the higher level ideas.

This one highlights many great sentences written by famous authors and breaks down their syntax.

> I should be more concise.