The document discusses three ways to make reading difficult: 1) Using different words to refer to the same thing, 2) Placing the subject and verb far apart in sentences, and 3) Mismatching a noun and its adjective phrase. Examples are provided to illustrate each technique.

1. Language as a
Disguise for Information
How to make the reader’s
life hard
Lawrie Hunter

2. At the end of May we drove to Ottawa. I had
never been to the city before. As we drove
into the nation’s capital, we were surprised to
see people skating on the river.
How to make the reader’s life hard
1. Use different words for the same thing

3. At the end of May we drove to Ottawa. I had
never been there before. As we drove into the
the center of Ottawa, we were surprised to
see people skating on the river.
How to make the reader’s life hard
1. Use different words for the same thing

4. The pattern of cases indicates that the
geographic range of the tick that is the
primary disease carrier, Ixodes
scapularis, known better as the deer tick
or black-legged tick, is expanding on the
East Coast.
How to make the reader’s life hard
2. Place the subject and verb far apart.

5. A military pilot sent by Eritrea to Saudi
Arabia to reclaim a jet stolen by two
fellow officers when they flew to seek
asylum has herself defected.
How to make the reader’s life hard
2. Place the subject and verb far apart.

6. Once installed, the software, which
initially will only be accessible on five
devices, including the Samsung Galaxy
series, before being made more widely
available, will put Facebook at the centre
of the user experience.
How to make the reader’s life hard
2. Place the subject and verb far apart.

7. Known to be composed mainly of nitrogen
ices, planetary scientists believe that this
mysterious formation is actually an artifact of
large scale convection activity in the region.
How to make the reader’s life hard
3. Mismatch a noun and its adjective phrase