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“Sandburg, will you please stop using ten-dollar words when you write your version of events? Maybe the lawyers will know what you mean, but most cops prefer the simple, fifty-cent words.
“Oh, come on, Jim! I know you’re not dumb; you’re a college graduate and a military officer, for Pete’s sake. You know exactly what those words mean... and sometimes the ten-dollar version conveys nuances that the fifty-cent version doesn’t.”
Jim snorted. “‘Nuances’? Chief, you’re supposed to be aiming these reports at cops; they don’t do nuances. And you know as well as I do, neither a college degree nor being an officer is an indication of intelligence. I’ve seen my share of clueless idiots in both groups; haven’t you?”
“But --”
“How many people do you think will look up the meaning of an unfamiliar word?”
“But the context --”
“And we’re right back to clueless idiots.”
“But --”
“Sandburg, you’ve taught for years; you’re used to explaining complex ideas in simple language. I’ve even seen you do that with green officers. Just keep using those same skills.”
Blair sighed as he gave up his argument. “I suppose you’re right; I’m writing an incident report, not an article I want to publish. But still... it wouldn’t hurt to use an occasional one-dollar word, would it?”
“Better keep it to seventy-five cents,” Jim advised. “Other people’s ideas of ‘one-dollar word’ is probably way less than yours.”
Both men went back to their reports and worked diligently for a while. Finally Blair finished typing, checked his work, and sent his report to the printer. Shortly afterward, Jim did the same, then looked up at the clock and started to shut down his computer.
“Shake a leg, Chief. If the phone doesn’t ring with a case in the next ten minutes, we’ll actually get out of here on time. I could do with a lazy evening; wanna get take-out from Mi Won’s?”
Blair also shut down his computer and shoved several books into his backpack. “Sounds good to me, man; it’s a lot easier to carry out the trash than do the dishes.
Later, over generous servings of sweet and sour pork, lo mein stir-fry with beef and broccoli, and kung pao chicken -- with egg rolls and fried rice on the side -- Blair returned to the discussion. “Seriously, Jim; do you think the language in my reports is too esoteric?”
Jim raised a brow. “You mean obscure, cryptic, or inscrutable? Or just plain high-falutin’?” He shook his head. “Hardly ever; I was mostly pulling your leg, but once in a while you slip in a doozy. But Chief, haven’t you ever watched these guys trying to file a folder in the right place? Half of them are muttering the alphabet song to themselves to get the order right.”
“Much as it pains me to say it, that’s becoming almost irrelevant. Just type an unknown word into a search engine and the definition is right there at your fingertips.”
Jim stopped eating to explain. “Blair, you’re one of the smartest people I know -- and you have a huge helping of creativity and innovation to go along with those smarts. But I don’t think you realize -- you also use those smarts to put ideas together in ways that simply wouldn’t occur to most people. I include me in that group... but especially the ‘average Joe’. When you don’t know who’ll be referencing your reports, they need to be at the ‘average Joe’ level.
“Look... if the D.A needs more details -- or nuances -- he’ll ask. But if the average cop doesn’t understand something, he won’t ask; he’ll be worried about ‘looking dumb’. Worst case scenario, some lowlife gets off because someone, somewhere, made wrong assumptions based on misunderstanding a word.” He shook his head when Bair opened his mouth to speak. “I know it’s not likely... but do we want to take even a one-percent chance?”
Blair sat back and frowned thoughtfully as he considered Jim’s words. He turned the ideas upside-down and inside-out, looking for something to refute his partner’s advice, but couldn’t find a single weak spot. Jim was right, dammit; he didn’t need graduate-level vocabulary to produce a concise report that accurately conveyed all the necessary details. Blair would just have to rope his friends into a game of Scrabble, and use his graduate-level vocabulary to beat the pants off them.
He relaxed. “You got it, big guy. From now on I write with twenty-five-cent words, and only use the fifty-cent words when necessary. And absolutely no ten-dollar, five-dollar, or even one-dollar words.”
“Thanks, Chief. And everyone else would thank you, too, if they knew what you were giving up for them.” Jim grinned mischievously. “By the way... did you hear about the rookie that started saving a lot of time on his reports?”
There was a trap here, but Blair drew a blank. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. He found out that the dictionary was alphabetized.”
Blair groaned theatrically. “Man, I think that was fresh when I was in fourth grade. You had to dig deep for that one.”
“Tried and true always works, Sandburg. Now, you want to split the rest of the lo mein? The game starts in thirty minutes.”
“Nah, let’s save the rest for lunches next week. The ice cream in the freezer is calling my name.”
“Rocky Road or Tutti Frutti?”
“They’re both good, but I think we should go alphabetically -- Rock Road, of course!”
~The End~