alt.hn

8/23/2026 at 6:08:13 PM

Explain it to me like I'm ten

 https://timharford.com/2026/08/explain-it-to-me-like-im-ten/

by bookofjoe

8/23/2026 at 10:38:59 PM

My favorite quote from Mark Twain is “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead”. Indeed, brevity and clarity actually take time and analysis. I find this to be very true when writing requirements or documentation. Some of the worst requirements I’ve read have been extremely wordy and unnecessarily over-technical or jargon-heavy when it could have been explained in plain language. As usual, it very much depends on the target audience.

by temporallobe

8/23/2026 at 10:46:47 PM

Incidentally, that's my favourite quote from Blaise Pascal: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/

by necovek

8/24/2026 at 12:35:15 AM

My favorite quote for 10 years was from my 1993 college math professor:

You will never go wrong attributing a pithy quote to Benjamin Franklin or Mark Twain.

And then the internet became popular.

by asdfasvea

8/24/2026 at 9:23:43 AM

I think your professor took that one from Franklin... or was it Mark Twain?

by necovek

8/24/2026 at 7:18:57 PM

Franklin couldn't predict the future. It was Twain, saying you'd never go wrong attributing a quote to Franklin.

by madcaptenor

8/25/2026 at 6:26:32 AM

Respecting a timeline only matters in some universes, and in the Universe of Quotes, it certainly does not!

by necovek

8/24/2026 at 2:27:48 PM

When I was in college I read:

At a party, want to have people think you're really smart?

If someone asks "Where's that [quote] from?" quickly respond "The Bible or Shakespeare."

In English, you'll be right 50% of the time.

by bookofjoe

8/24/2026 at 7:05:28 AM

If only the LLM coding zealots were aware of this wisdom.

by waynesonfire

8/24/2026 at 2:03:06 PM

Yes, but it can be worth it as I've generally found that the most effective professional writing has your high-level request appear within the very first sentence.

This is because it as quickly as possible puts the reader into the context of what you need from them making your rationalization of the request reinforce it, whereas if you try to rationalize before getting to your request a busy reader (think customer support, exec, manager) will be thinking "Okay, okay, okay, what are they getting to? Okay, okay, oh there we go finally I know, now let's consider their rationalization, maybe I should scroll up and re-read".

I started doing this after having done email customer service many years ago, when you're expected to spend as little time as possible per support case, you will speed read their writing until you find the part which says what their issue is, for some emails this was paragraphs. A particularly memorable WoW case for me was something like this, but more verbose:

"I finished the raid last night where we managed to down <boss name>, after we celebrated, I logged off. Then I woke up and went to school as usual, after getting home I tried logging on it showed a message saying I was banned, I was heart-broken as I've put so much time into the game and it means so much to me, so to find out why I logged into my Gmail and an email from you said I was banned due to <reason>."

As a support person, all of that was completely irrelevant except for the part saying "I was banned due to <reason>" (which was commonly due account being compromised by a gold seller looting it and then auto-banned due to stuff they were doing on it).

Something else which reinforced my view of "get to the point quickly" was an HN comment saying how they were once sent on a course on "how as an engineer to communicate effectively with execs" which apparently essentially stated "write your email as you normally would, then at the end take the last paragraph and put it at the top of the email". The rationale being that execs are typically only interested in reading a full email if it's actually relevant to them.

by jonathanlydall

8/24/2026 at 2:59:24 PM

This sounds a lot like the BLUF technique [0]. This is one of my favorite techniques in professional settings.

I don't interpret this as contradictory to the OP's point and quote: in order to determine the most important first line, one must slow down to identify exactly what that is.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication)

by jodacola

8/24/2026 at 11:36:52 PM

It works in all cases except the important ones, where you expect that your request will be denied upfront and you have to present all the compelling arguments for your request along with the risks of not honoring your request, before you go to formulating what you need as the lesser evil of all the unpleasant alternatives.

by sixsevenrot

8/24/2026 at 9:07:12 AM

I find that this quote is not just applicable to writing of natural language like letters. It also applies to code, and is becoming more and more evident to me due to the use of AI.

I believe the idea presented transcends writing actually. For example you could also apply it to painting or sculpting. I think this points to the character of creative thinking where one "chips" away at a subject until it is considered as finished.

by trashb

8/24/2026 at 8:52:14 AM

Similarly I often read ticket or PR descriptions written by Claude that are so jargon-heavy that I just can't understand on first try. On one side it's a reality check because I always considered English to be close to a mother tongue for me, on the other side I never had to deal with words like "idempotent"... (Seriously, when did this become one of the go-to words to use?)

by cpt_sobel

8/24/2026 at 11:18:29 AM

Idempotency is a crucial trait in the world of web APIs (and any other system where commands that modify state might need to be retried due to communication failures). It's not a new word or concept, but it's certainly a niche one.

by interf4ce

8/24/2026 at 11:02:58 AM

Idempotent is definitely a word that’s strangely awkward and alien to actually use, but makes reasonable sense when the etymology is known.

The closest alternative I can think of is debouncing/debounced

by Modified3019

8/24/2026 at 12:27:57 PM

> jargon-heavy

Yes. It’s even worse than jargon tho I think it just invents its own metaphors. At first I thought this was clever and useful, helping me to internalize the code (“the normal path vs the escape hatch”) but I’m increasingly finding the metaphors to be so thick and esoteric that it’s actually a hurdle to understanding the actual code.

by joshuahedlund

8/24/2026 at 5:46:52 PM

This brought to mind the often quoted assumption that intelligence and compression are intimately related.

A well edited letter may therefore be a sign of intelligence.

by stillpointlab

8/24/2026 at 2:25:00 PM

Classic Spanish proverb: "Vísteme despacio, que tengo prisa." Literally meaning "Dress me slowly, because I'm in a hurry."

by bookofjoe

8/24/2026 at 12:44:03 AM

With both ELI5 and this title, the hidden assumption which is generally correct is that "I don't remember much from my education specifically middle and highschool".

Well I do remember my highschool subjects and I feel like there is a chasm between highly detailed technical content created for other profesionals and watered down versions for 5 year olds.

I don't see that many "explain to me like I've finished highschool" content.

by mahdi7d1

8/24/2026 at 1:37:05 AM

I used to work in higher ed. The reason you don't see this is that it's harder to produce (usably) than an eli5; there is little incentive as there aren't many advanced enough to want it who aren't also in walled off training; and there are often many tiers between layperson and professional such that connecting the right audience with the right material is its own problem. I agree it is terribly frustrating.

by watercast

8/24/2026 at 5:22:36 AM

I teach OS security for a masters course. I don't know where my students are for any given semester - it's a mixture between experts who need a certification (I have taught someone who literally wrote the book on a major OS's security model) and people who have ended up on security entirely by accident. It is extremely hard to write something that lands for that entire range. "Finished highschool" is really not a precise determinator in the way "I am literally 5" is.

by mjg59

8/24/2026 at 1:02:46 AM

I think at some point you just have to try to read the technical content then see what you don't understand and figure that out.

by jamilton

8/24/2026 at 1:33:38 AM

You're asking for "explain like you respect my intelligence"

by SoftTalker

8/24/2026 at 5:42:40 AM

I think OPs comment is about education and not intelligence per se.

by baxtr

8/23/2026 at 7:49:59 PM

I think constraints essentially force you to reevaluate the thing from base principles because you add a condition that’s incompatible with the default way of doing things.

I think this is also why hackathons work: You can’t afford the bikeshedding we often do to avoid the hard work because you need to ship something by a deadline 1/500th of most of your normal deadlines, so all of your effort is concentrated into what moves the core work forward.

What gets proven in hackathons often become features, products, or companies later - even if they’re things that would be ruled out in any planning meeting because they seem too hard/laborious.

by FinnLobsien

8/23/2026 at 9:29:52 PM

I'd say a lot of the value in "explain it to me like I'm ten" is just expending more time and effort in explaining something. People of all ages respond to engaging writing and clever analogies, and that tends to accompany the style of writing for a younger or broader audience.

by bariumbitmap

8/24/2026 at 12:05:50 AM

"puzzling than pellucid"

Pellucid might be cromullant but it ain't pervasive. I have never heard that word and I've heard quite a few. If I had to guess: it might be American (US) in situ wankery only, for the use of.

Might be wrong.

by gerdesj

8/24/2026 at 12:48:14 AM

Harford, the author of the OC, is a learned man of at least middle-age (sorry!). He has been a journalist for decades.

I suspect he may have had an education including Latin (per-lucid => pellucid) making that word choice far more natural. But really it's a poetic pairing of punchy adjectives amplified by alliteration!

I'm a fan of his work generally. This piece landed well with me, I like to read less used vocabulary too. So often I can't express myself naturally because people don't share my word sense; it's liberating to release those bounds when writing for a more academic audience; as Hartford clearly was here.

I did spot an error:

>soldier a rifle

They mean shoulder, of course. Surprised if a newspaper editor or personal spellchecker missed that; perhaps it was left in as bait for social media comments!?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Harford

by pbhjpbhj

8/24/2026 at 1:36:41 AM

> But really it's a poetic pairing of punchy adjectives amplified by alliteration!

Silence! You bubble-headed boobie!

-- Dr. Smith

by SoftTalker

8/24/2026 at 4:36:38 PM

Jonathan Harris gave an interview where he described the suit-wearing stuntman Bob May as "A very strange individual, even by the standards of the 1960s. Whenever I said 'you bubble-headed booby', I wasn't talking to the robot."

by ahazred8ta

8/24/2026 at 12:00:34 PM

I have to admit that is the biggest challenge for me in working at modern IT companies - to understand the language.

I attribute that to me not being a native speaker. I always feel they all speak like Im 100, not ten.

Because of abundance of peculiar terminology, unusual ways of doing and describing things, extreme diversity of accents etc sometimes it feels like people intentionally make things more complicated than they are.

It’s sometimes harder for me to understand and make sense than most boring philosophical lectures on youtube.

by aristofun

8/24/2026 at 12:30:24 AM

I agree, but not everyone can. I've worked with several people who were top experts in their field and absolutely sucked at accessible explanations. The author alludes to it here: "the very expertise that makes the expert worth consulting also makes it hard for the expert to imagine what it was like to know nothing about the topic" - but that also carries over to ELI5 or ELI10. Another problem is that, to be frank, experts sometimes don't know how to explain certain concepts. For example, you can be adept in calculus without knowing where the rules come from. All you can do is relay the rulebook to someone else.

Another problem, I think, is that we're actually overindexing on ELI5 / ELI10, a problem compounded by YouTube educators and LLMs. Many skills are hard to learn and require some trial, error, and hands-on practice. It's easy to come up with an endless supply of childlike metaphors. It's a lot harder to actually teach someone that way.

by matherial

8/24/2026 at 10:46:29 PM

The whole ELIx implies that an advanced narrator has to simplify things for another adult. Why not just call it a simplified ELI-at-my-age?

by tsoukase

8/24/2026 at 12:56:28 AM

Really enjoyed the read. Thank you OP.

by karim79

8/24/2026 at 2:40:04 PM

> a notch in the back of the helmet designed to accommodate hair buns allowed all soldiers, regardless of hair-do, to raise their heads while prone. “A new, more meticulous sizing process that benefitted women benefitted everyone,” Epstein writes.

This isn't a story of accommodating women magically accommodating everyone. It's spending lots of money allowing something for women because they're women, that of course benefits men as well. It's just you wouldn't normally spend that much money on something cosmetic for men; you'd just shave their hair off, so the money can go to something more useful (or not cost the taxpayer as much).

by philipallstar

8/24/2026 at 10:33:40 AM

I must recommend "50 Things That Made the Modern Economy", 10-15 minutes audio episodes, very entertaining and educational.

by hsuduebc2

8/24/2026 at 10:19:28 PM

I use “ELI 58” with my coding agent all The time. It’s perfect lol

by K0balt

8/23/2026 at 9:52:10 PM

[flagged]

by viralreferapp

8/23/2026 at 11:16:44 PM

[dead]

by effnorwood

8/23/2026 at 7:09:54 PM

[flagged]

by 01284a7e

8/23/2026 at 7:16:51 PM

The blog post isn't directed at 10-year-olds. In fact, you're pulling a phrase from a paragraph that's describing exactly how you should not speak when talking to a 10-year-old.

> The simplest constraint for anyone trying to explain a complex topic is to accept the request to “explain it to me like I’m 10 years old”. What’s packed into that request is, vividly exaggerated, the reminder that what seems obvious to an expert is often incomprehensible to the listener. Technical jargon and fusillades of acronyms are often used to convey an explanation that has been denuded of all the foundations and context that might allow it to make sense.

by rpdillon

8/23/2026 at 7:21:27 PM

[flagged]

by 01284a7e

8/23/2026 at 7:44:13 PM

It might be helpful to note that this article was written for the FT (as he mentions at the very bottom.) While it aphoristically may make a “pre out of you and me,” I presume neither the author, nor the subscribership of FT _are_ indeed (or wish to be) constrained to the language of a typical 10-year-old. Presumably the same would apply to the readership of HN.

We don’t know if the author _can_ explain it like we’re ten, but I think we can be reasonably certain they understandably chose not to.

by nemosaltat

8/23/2026 at 9:37:23 PM

The author can do that, but didn't for literary effect. And he can do that because his audience is FT readers, not 10-year-olds.

by kelnos

8/23/2026 at 7:27:31 PM

Ten-year-olds don't need advice on how to explain something like the listener is ten.

by AnimalMuppet

8/23/2026 at 10:38:37 PM

“Explain it like I am an adult.” - 10yo

by cwmoore

8/23/2026 at 7:45:22 PM

Good thing they never claimed to be writing in that style then. Not sure what you're working yourself up over here. Authors are allowed to write about a method of writing without having to apply it themselves.

by atoav

8/23/2026 at 7:57:46 PM

Is "explaining it like I'm ten" a complex topic?

by Chris2048

8/23/2026 at 7:19:30 PM

It's when multiple soldiers are ordered to fire their guns very quickly, either everyone at once or one after another.

by rzzzt

8/23/2026 at 8:09:20 PM

I think that the author is doing it deliberately, to put the reader in the shoes of someone who has a hard time understanding some of the words, and reinforce his point.

As a non-native English speaker there are 4 words in this article that I had to look up, which is significantly higher than a typical article from HN frontpage (usually it's 0, occasionally 1).

If anyone curious, the words are: pellucid, fusillades, pram (idk, why I never heard it. I knew the word "stroller", of course, but I never thought about different kinds of strollers), octogenarian (this one I could have guessed from Latin roots and context, was lazy).

by vova_hn2

8/23/2026 at 10:48:43 PM

As a native English speaker; pellucid was new to me.

Fusillades specifically was unfamiliar but I inferred if from context and knowing fusilier.

by ErrantX

8/23/2026 at 11:55:09 PM

There's also “lexiphanic” and “denuded” (uncommon but clear from context in this case).

by sltkr

8/23/2026 at 8:32:50 PM

Pram is common in British English. I'm guessing you learned US English, which doesn't use it.

by hn_go_brrrrr

8/23/2026 at 8:35:45 PM

Yes, as slang for ‘perambulator’, which is basically ‘stroller’

by KineticLensman

8/24/2026 at 10:19:15 AM

Not really a stroller is a pushchair.

A pram is a kind of mobile bed for babies.

by ninalanyon

8/24/2026 at 3:00:02 PM

Fair enough.

In my defence, I was coming at it etymologically, where (according to the OED), a perambulator is 'A person who walks or travels through or about a place' (hence 'walker') OR 'A carriage for a baby or young child, which may be pushed along by a person on foot. Now usually shortened to pram [...] a cradle mounted on four wheels'.

So 'mobile bed' is a perfect description

by KineticLensman

8/23/2026 at 8:55:07 PM

The word pram doesn't exist in American English, true, but you'll learn it anyway if you ever read Peter Pan.

by thaumasiotes

8/23/2026 at 9:16:52 PM

Though even in the UK I think it has a slightly old fashioned feel -- I feel like parents are more likely to have a pushchair than a pram.

by pm215

8/24/2026 at 12:18:55 AM

My understanding was that a pram is used for a younger child, they are laid flat. A pushchair/buggy for an older child, they sit. Language is often used incorrectly however.

A ring-sling suited us better.

I think the modern style is a multi-hundred pound (£) infant travel system. https://www.argos.co.uk/browse/baby-and-nursery/travel/trave... - up to £1500 in this relatively down-market UK shop.

by pbhjpbhj

8/23/2026 at 7:16:15 PM

I don't think the article itself was intended to be written for a 10-year-old to understand it.

by ranger_danger

8/23/2026 at 7:22:48 PM

Neither did the author

> If you are reading this column you definitely aren’t a typical 10-year-old, but the image of the bewildered 10-year-old gives the expert an anchor to help them slow down and simplify [0]

[0] TFA

by nemosaltat

8/24/2026 at 12:17:55 AM

Pirate books use it a lot!

by jimmygrapes

8/24/2026 at 6:12:33 AM

I just checked on Gutenberg and was surprised to find that Hornblower doesn't use the word! But the second sentence of the first Sherlock Holmes book (A Study in Scarlet) introduces Watson as having been a member of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers.

by Smaug123

8/23/2026 at 8:53:46 PM

> No ten year old knows that word.

Why would you think that?

by thaumasiotes

8/23/2026 at 9:13:33 PM

Because they pretty much just learned to read?

by esikich

8/23/2026 at 11:33:37 PM

... 5 years prior

by singpolyma3

8/24/2026 at 12:00:48 AM

Well I've got 38 years of reading experience and have never seen that word.

by esikich

8/24/2026 at 2:26:08 AM

If you can't glean the definition from context, anyone 10 years old or older should be able to use a dictionary.

by basscomm

8/25/2026 at 4:03:02 AM

Can a 10 year old do that? Wtf are we talking about.

by esikich

8/25/2026 at 12:17:20 PM

We were talking about how explaining something to a 10-year-old sometimes means that you use words that a 10-year-old doesn't know. And that a 10-year-old should have the ability to use a dictionary to look up unfamiliar words.

I was also implying that you, and I assumed that you were more than 10 years old, could also use a dictionary to look up words you weren't familiar with if you aren't able to glean their definition from context.

Can a 10-year-old use a dictionary? That's approximately fifth grade in the US. By 10 years old, they should be able to use a dictionary and encyclopedias to look up stuff. At the very least they should be able to go to merriam-webster.com or wherever and type in an unfamiliar word to get a definition.

by basscomm

8/24/2026 at 6:54:17 AM

You know how you'll see people talking about the difference between having five years of experience, or having one year of experience five times in a row?

by thaumasiotes

8/25/2026 at 4:03:13 AM

Yes.

by esikich

8/25/2026 at 4:18:30 AM

Could be your sphere of reading and / or age - it's common enough in (say) the British Ripping Yarns genre of boys own colonial adventures.

So UK, Canadian, Australian boys who were ten years old in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s would have encountered it. Anything that featured older school British Empire toy soldiers would have likely used the word, along with other military terms.

Rudyard Kipling is a typical kind of author who'd be read by ten year olds and who'd use that word and others of a similar pedigree.

by defrost

8/23/2026 at 7:23:52 PM

Indeed, TFA isn’t exactly pellucid

by nemosaltat

8/23/2026 at 7:43:02 PM

I disagree but respect the reasoning

by hny6epwg93