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Good point... so when writers don't have a specific target readership, they have to decide on something between going with a higher level of language complexity (risking alienating those who don't understand), and writing at sixth-grade level just to make sure (and risk boring some people).... If you try to find a happy medium, how do you decide what that right level is?sigrosenblum said:Funny and true. Yet my sypathies still go out to authors who are hanging from the dilemma. Will sheltered or unsophisticated readers understand that the Rio Grande is, indeed, a river?
Imagine a line: "They found his battered body in the Rio Grande." What is that? A big plaza? Church? Park? No, I had better say "River."
This is the kind of self-torture writers go through. It's enough to make you drown yourself in the Big River!