“Did writing this book make other writing seem overly complex?

It definitely made me notice more when I came across complicated words. I read a paper recently about surveying a moon from an orbiter and it said they detected a number of lacustrine depressions. I lloked it up and it means lake-like. So what they mean is, we’ve discovered some lakes. Of course, there’s some value in not using familiar terms because you want people to realise they are not exactly lakes. But at the same time, fluid-filled lacustrine depressions is the most complicated way to say ‘lake’ I can imagine.”

Randall Munroe, a former NASA roboticist and creator of the cult webcomic XKCD, writing about his new book in the New Scientist.

Reference

Munroe, R. (2015) It’s Not A Rocket It’s An Up Goer. New Scientist. 28 November 2015, pp.32-33.