Frustrating

At the risk of sounding snobbish or condescending, I wish to pass on this little anecdote. I have been tabbed to conduct an investigation of a soldier missing a "sensitive item". I had turned in my findings two weeks ago but the report was returned to me tonight, much to my consternation, because the assistant JAG couldn't "understand" it.

I didn't see how what I'd written didn't speak clearly, but I set out to clarify the report. I asked a fellow captain if he had any experience with investigations and, once he said that he had, I asked him to read what I'd written and tell me what I could do to make it more clear. I soon discovered that the issue wasn't a matter of lucidity but, rather, complexity, when he stopped to ask me what "corroborated" meant. Heretofore I'd been under the impression that the perplexing word was widely known, insofar as its application to investigation and law, but I was quickly disabused of that notion as the captain proceeded to say, "You mean, 'collaborated'? That means they're scheming." When I assured him that I indeed meant "corroborated" and not "collaborated" he told me I definitely needed to get rid of that. As he was looking on, I thanked him and replaced the source of obfuscation with "verified".

When he returned to what he was doing, my sensibilities required me to reinsert "corroborated" and I spent a few minutes pondering how to rewrite the entire thing so that it could be understood by a child. As of this moment, I still have not figured out how to do so, or, rather, how to condescend to do so.