Everydayterms

Everydayterms is a concept used in linguistics, education, and information design to describe the vocabulary and expressions that people typically use in daily life. It focuses on plain, widely understood language that supports clear communication across diverse audiences. The idea is to make information accessible by prioritizing terms familiar to a broad readership and avoiding unnecessary jargon or highly technical terms.

Scope and selection methods vary, but everydayterms usually includes high-frequency nouns, verbs, adjectives, function words, and common phrases found in ordinary conversation, media, and documentation. Criteria commonly emphasize frequency in large language corpora, cross-demographic understandability, and contextual clarity. Terms that are regionally restricted, highly specialized, or newly created may be excluded or flagged as less established. Selection methods often combine corpus data, readability metrics, and user testing to refine lists.

Applications of the concept include informing plain-language writing, educational materials, public communications, healthcare and legal information, user interfaces, and glossary creation. It supports language learning by providing a stable, comprehensible core lexicon and guides authors toward more accessible terminology.

Relation to related concepts is important: everydayterms overlaps with plain language, plain English, and controlled vocabularies, while remaining distinct from domain-specific jargon. It is typically responsive to language change and cultural norms, with ongoing updates to reflect how people actually speak and write in everyday life. Limitations include balancing precision with simplicity and addressing dialectal variation. Related ideas include plain language, readability, and controllable vocabularies.