In Writing for the right audience, one of my golden rules was Don’t use clever-sounding language just for the sake of it. As I’ve recently been revising some documents written by software professionals who aren’t technical writers, I’ve come across lots of examples of this – in some cases, long words are used in slightly the wrong way, or terms are used because they’re seen as being more polite.
A friend of mine who’s also a tech writer works a lot with documents that have been translated into English, and has given me some examples as well (thanks Voolly!) – of course, translation errors are more excusable, but the same errors are often made by speakers of English as a first language.

Here are some of my favourite (or should that be least favourite?) examples.

Utilise/Utilize
Often used in place of use. However, it has a subtly different meaning – ‘to make use of’ or ‘to turn to practical use’.
The software is utilized to perform calculations. (Not wrong, but not good either.)
This software is used to perform calculations. (OK.)
This software performs calculations. (Best!)

In order to / If you want to
Just use to by itself, please!

Within
Used instead of in. Within means inside, generally inside a physical object, which in most uses isn’t quite the word needed.

As to whether
The as to can be dropped.

In the case that
Just if will do nicely here.

Wish and Desire
Use want or require, as appropriate. Both are politer than necessary when giving technical instructions.
If you wish to -> If you want to
The desired option -> The required option

Need
You need to enter a value and A value needs to be entered are common misconstructions (the second one more in translations). Both can be replaced by Enter a value.

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