Easy writer torrent4/8/2023 But readers know what you mean when you say it, rather than having to figure it out. Ok, so that's not the technically correct term. I've routinely heard the piece of red cloth that a matador uses referred to as a "red cape". But when I'm talking to a non-computer person, they're just confusing. When I'm talking to another computer person, I use technical terms to avoid ambiguity. I'll say something more like, "we get the customer's order information". I don't say, "we scan the BTREE index using a pre-order traversal to find the records with matching GUIDs, retrieve the designated control intervals, and parse the records". But I avoid using technical terms when talking to people who are not computer savvy. Computer systems are complicated and we have lots of technical terms. ![]() This is the same problem that experts always have when trying to explain their field to the general public. How can I alleviate the weight of foreign terms in the story, without sacrificing the main character's voice? It is important to note this is a short story, so spreading the term out more isn't an option. What they're saying is, it's not that the meaning of each particular term can't be figured out from context, but there's just too many, too much effort required. Trouble is, within the scope of a short story, my beta readers feel overwhelmed by the abundance of terms. Calling it a "red piece of cloth" makes as much sense as a professional swordsman calling the hilt "a handle", or worse - referring to a fuller as a "blood groove". As an example, the red piece of cloth the matador uses is called a muleta. ![]() Those are the terms used in any and all related publications, fiction and non-fiction alike. ![]() When speaking in English, the proper terms are the Spanish ones. Anything else doesn't really make sense in terms of the narrator's voice. My POV character lives that particular field, so he would be using the proper terms, not more general nonspecific words. (Specifically, I'm writing about bullfighting, but the question could apply to other fields.) I am writing a short story, about a particular field with multiple specific terms, none of which are in English.
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