---
title: "When can I say “janky” in my on-screen text?"
date: 2008-07-18
description: "$( document ).ready(function() { // Handler for .ready() called. $('#toc').toc({ minimumHeaders: 3, listType: 'ul', showSpeed: 0, headers: '#content h2, #content h3, #content h4, #content h5, #content h6' }); /*..."
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---

> For AI agents: a documentation index is available at https://idratherbewriting.com/llms.txt. Markdown versions of all pages are available by appending .md to any page URL.

# When can I say “janky” in my on-screen text?

In the on-screen text in WordPress, on the Write > Page screen, I ran across the following help text.

[![When you can use the word Janky in your documentation?](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/janky_wordpress2.png)](https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/idbwmedia.com/images/2008/07/janky_wordpress.png)

Just yesterday [my colleague Ben was asking](http://www.gryphonmountain.net/archives/techcomm/writing-documentation-like-a-real-live-person) how I felt about the use of contractions in help. Contractions? We've moved far beyond contractions. We're now using terms like *janky*.

How I would love to publicly insult the applications I document! *E.g., Hey, we know this feature is kludgey, but we couldn't find an easy fix. Hang on -- the next release will get better.*