Reading Noted Commentators' Commentaries/Articles

Do you read the George Will commentary columns/articles? He is a columnist for the Washington Post. He also replaced a much missed John Leo who wrote as a contributing editor/columnist for U.S. News & World Report magazine. Anyway, George Will does a good job telling a story, but I often wonder who he is writing for. That is, which level of reader? Hardly a time goes by when I read his column without a dictionary at hand. No joke. Even with a couple of years of college under my belt, his writings contain words I have never seen or noted or heard. This forces me (and I confidently believe forces other readers as well) to interrupt my reading to refer to Webster's New World College Dictionary, Third Edition, 1997. Reading the Foreward in this dictionary will have you believe editors everywhere use this tome in their work. With George Will injecting unfamiliar words into his commentaries, as I have always noticed when I allow myself to read his columns, I have to say George Will owes the Webster Dictionary maintainers thanks, because without the dictionary his writing would be difficult to comprehend, you would probably need to resort to guesswork and make the best of it. I am fairly certain George Will is a highly educated personage, but is it necessary, even wise, to inject unfamiliar, uncommon lexicon into his articles? I think not, unless your ego is at work and you are trying to impress. Both a terrible waste of time and talent. It was early in my pursuit of public speaking that I learned to stick to the point, keep it simple, i.e. easily understandable without causing the hearer to wonder what you are saying, thereby losing a good deal of what you are saying while he is wondering . This same idea applies to writing. There is no substitute for the KISS formula that ought to be applied in most everything we do. If you do not know what KISS stands for, ask me. When I know more than a couple of readers connected to this blog would care to know, I will provide a clear answer. Meanwhile, I hope and pray that you understood every word used in this commentary. Every word I believe was needed to clearly make my point. Thanks for visiting. Bob P.S. You can read over 50 of my other blogs by clicking: http://fourwinds.blogster.com/ *****Readers are encouraged to thoroughly investigate any offers advertised on my blog page beyond my commentary. I do not necessarily endorse any advertiser found on my site. *****