Talk:write down

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To write something in a simple or condescending style. Looks like write + down (At a lower and/or further along or away place or position along a set path.) The set path in this case is written complexity. I'm also not sure this is actually used citably even if it is idiomatic, but it's very hard to search for. (I did find two uses). WurdSnatcher (talk)

Isn't it the same as dumb down, but dumb down in writing? Seems that is what it is trying to express. If it does exist, then should be kept, IMO.--Sonofcawdrey (talk) 09:13, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I see talk down as inherently insulting. write down comes across to me as plainly literal, and it must (if it's used at all) specify to what it is writing down to, as in the examples I found of "write down to the level of", that's just a plain fact. talk down (or really talk down to) is mainly patronizing and insulting, and doesn't need to have any factual changes (in other words, I can talk down to someone without really changing my diction much, if at all, it's more a matter of tone and style; the only way to write down is to write in a (figuratively) downward manner). WurdSnatcher (talk)

In the following citation, write down seems clearly write + down (to the level....):

• DCDuring TALK 18:09, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Very difficult to find citations given the very high frequency of the usual sense of "to write down" = put down in writing. Without a good set of citations to back up this sense, I say delete.--Sonofcawdrey (talk) 01:54, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

How are these:

• 1983, Randolph H. Hudson, Gertrude M. McGuire, Bernard J. Selzler, Business writing: concepts and applications →ISBN

  Writing down to the reader is even more undesirable. No grown person likes to be treated as if he or she has the mind of a twelve-year-old.

• 1991, Studying Classical Judaism: A Primer, Westminster John Knox Press →ISBN, page 11

  Anyone who writes down to the Judaic and Christian faithful will miss a vast and important audience of religious intellectuals, the largest single body, I suspect, of serious readers about religion in any country in the world.

• 2010, Laurence Lerner, You Can't Say That! English Usage Today, Cambridge University Press →ISBN, page 131

  [A] scientist or a philosopher, trying to explain difficult ideas to the general public , might be seen as writing down to them.

• 2013, John Frederick Reynolds, Carolyn B. Matalene, Joyce Neff Magnotto, Donald C. Samson, Jr., Lynn Veach Sadler, Professional Writing in Context: Lessons From Teaching and Consulting in Worlds of Work, Routledge →ISBN, page 145

  Writing down to one's audience cheats the subject matter no less than it cheats both writer and reader.

Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:19, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Excellent work. I'm convinced! 'Keep from me. BTW, OED defines it as "to adapt one's literary style to the level of readers of supposedly inferior intelligence or taste".--Sonofcawdrey (talk) 09:44, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

• I would keep it. I feel like there is insufficient evidence to delete, and we have talk down to which is the same thing just a different verb and much more common. Renard Migrant (talk) 10:40, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
• Keep. The sense seems to exist and does not seem to be a transparent use of "write" + "down". As a double check, the sense is Collins 3[1], and Merriam-Webster intransitive sense[2], --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:13, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 02:40, 19 December 2015 (UTC)