It's a bad idea to encrypt passwords, but that's beside the point.
> If a dictionary visit is required, you've failed the audience.
If you take this to its logical conclusion, we end up in a world where English ceases to be the language of Shakespeare and more like dogespeak. No one will be morose anymore, just very sad, and no one will know what it means to be awestruck.
Someone will always need a dictionary. That shouldn't make us afraid to show that we have a vocabulary spanning more than 500 words, or that we have an education at all. God forbid we encourage others to stop talking or writing like 16-year-olds on E! TV.
Only an idiot would think she was suggesting blindly replacing every instance of "very capable" with accomplished. Clearly they are merely suggestions to consider.
The article describes ways to avoid using very, not that you should replace every instance of very with another synonym. There are instances when you can easily replace "very XXX" with a more descriptive term.
"If a dictionary visit is required, you've failed the audience."
I disagree, I very much enjoy having my vocabulary enriched by having to visit a dictionary now and again. If you are an english speaker and reader (regardless of whether it's your first, second or third language) visits to the dictionary are a good thing.
This reminds me of an English teacher I had in high school who disallowed us from using a list of banned words in a writing assignment. In previous assignments students had overused them to pad their word count and to inflate the apparent sophistication of their vocabulary. Among these words were "basically" and "essentially" which he told us were garbage words (as far as essay-writing as concerned). It stuck with me.
There seem to be many words which are useful in conversation but for whatever reason are not that good for efficient writing, or so overused in speech (for lack of better words as one scrambles for word choice in real time) that it's hard to avoid using them in writing.
Rules like these aren't really good guide to style though. They are the sort of guidelines suited to curing teenagers of bad habits. That's the problem I have with articles like these. They aren't adult discussions of language; they do not teach effective writing, and do not promote an understanding of language. One should ideally outgrow such pedagogy by one's second year of college.
See also: "really" and "actually". An easy way to improve your writing is to do a quick edit and remove all instances of these no-op words then go back and adjust.
Might be interesting to automatically keep a running count of words used in your writing (across formats), and make a habit of avoiding what you've been overusing.
When I first moved to America, my speech was interpreted as not enthusiastic. A trick I use to now is to just put very in front of everything. I'm very happy that this fixed the problem.
As a side note, I was always amused by the number of generic superlatives available in many languages. In English, we've already got "very", and "damn" as the site mentions, along with "really", "extremely", "amazingly" and so on. In British English, you can say "bloody" or "damnedly" or "shockingly" or "terribly" or any of a vast number of other superlatives, not to ignore the crass "fucking".
My favourite has to be the French "vachement", which could be translated as "cowly".
You're then in a grey area of synonyms, it's not always hierarchical. If you're in a race for superlatives, then it's time to get creative. You could try: "paralyzed with terror".
Keep in mind that, however "vachement" may sound, it is (very) familiar — almost slang.
It comes from "vache", which is the French noun for "cow", but can also be used familiarly as an adjective that roughly translates to "nasty".
If you enjoyed "vachement", you will be happy to know that the French noun "bœuf" (the second letter is made of an O and an E), which became "beef" in English, can also be used familiarly as an adjective meaning something along "intense".
The problem with style guides is that they're often conflated by both the reader and the writer as rulebooks. They should instead be used as sources of writing ideas, or communication improvement aids -- to target writing for specific audiences.
English can be assembled in all kinds of wonderful and creative ways. The best writing is when you coin a phrase that style guides insist shouldn't work, but communicate something beautifully. "Most excellent", for example, is a wonderful example. It's concise, it's nonstandard and it's brings about vivid imagery of two time travelling wanna be rock stars.
The worst style guides are outright wrong. "very afraid" doesn't mean "terrified". How lame does "be afraid, be very afraid" sounds as "be afraid, be terrified"? "very poor" doesn't mean "destitute", I grew up very poor, but we were never destitute. Being "very rude" is has a very different connotation from "vulgar". This guide takes finely graded connotations and turns them into extremes.
It's worth using it to double check if what you mean is the extreme, and you accidentally used something else, but beyond that, a search and replace of "very <word>" with any of these suggestions is likely to make your writing worse.
I was always bothered by the overuse of the word "pretty" on the Internet in place of "very." As a non-native English speaker, I grew up thinking of pretty as synonym of beautiful. Now that I see everyone using it as they would use very, I find it hard to parse.
"pretty" as an adverb to mean "to a moderately high degree" is pretty standard for English speakers. "It's pretty hot" means it's more than warm, but not hot".
Interestingly, the forms that you liken to "beautiful" actually parse to a native English speaker as "attractive but not quite beautiful".
So, on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the top), "pretty" has the connotation of maybe a 7 or 8 on any scale, beauty or otherwise. And that's basically how it always parses out in English. Just consider it as a 7-8 whatever on a 1-10 scale.
note if the scale is inverse, it's the same. Suppose 1-10 was a scale of ugliness (with 10 being most ugly) "pretty ugly" is still a 7-8 on that scale. Same with "pretty cold" if the 10 means "coldest possible".
"very" is used to emphasize something. "She's very pretty." Means she's somewhere between pretty and outright beautiful, but more on the beautiful side ("she's almost beautiful" has a bad connotation that there's something wrong with her).
"It's very hot" would mean not only is it hot, but it's a little extra hot.
It's like adding a .5 to anything on that 10 point scale.
So if "hot" is 10, very hot is a 10.5.
You rarely use it with words that have a moderate intention, except for specific effect, "it's very lukewarm" is not something you'd probably regularly hear. But "it's very cold" is.
I think this is a bad thing for a different reason; people are using "pretty" to adjust expectation downward. saying "pretty fun" is less suggestive than just "fun". It's become a qualifier used for widespread ass-guarding in social situations.
It's not used in place of "very", it means "somewhat" or "mostly". "Pretty good" means not all good but not all bad either. If a server at a restaurant asks you, "How is your meal?" and you respond, "Pretty good", you should be prepared to have them ask, "What's wrong with it?"
I am a native English speaker who uses pretty that way often, and it still bothers me. When I was younger I always wrote pritty, and treated it as a separate word all together. I stopped because too many people thought I just couldn't spell.
Isn't this ass-backwards? It seems to me that if exhausted really does just mean the same as "very tired", etc, we should be dumping all these other more intense adjectives. If your purpose in writing is to communicate, then needlessly complicating your speech with uncommon words is a bug, not a feature.
The reason this is recommended is in order to improve the specificity of description: "he was very tired" does not tell us as much about him. If you just substituted "very tired" with "exhausted" everywhere, you wouldn't be adhering to the spirit of the substitution, which is all about adding detail. Maybe his manager hates him and he is leaving work, "browbeaten and resigned", or maybe he just didn't sleep last night and he is headed to work, "clouds in his mind and lead in his limbs" or whatever.
Agreed. Sometimes you use "very" because the sentence flows better that way. "Very" is a lyrical word and pairs well; many of the replacements (i.e., "exhausted", "sagacious", etc.) aren't. If the text is meant to be spoken aloud, it makes a substantial difference.
When I was in high school we couldn't use the verb "to be" in assignments for English class. No is, am, are, was, were, has been, will be, etc.
Of course this is overly restrictive, but 80-90% of the time there was a better way to phrase the sentence if you thought about removing the "be" verb. 10% of the time it was awkward, which sucked.
Aside: also taught me that MS Word has a very advanced find feature where I could give it "be" and it would find me all of the above conjugations.
> When I was in high school we couldn't use the verb "to be" in assignments for English class. No is, am, are, was, were, has been, will be, etc.
> Of course this is overly restrictive, but 80-90% of the time there was a better way to phrase the sentence if you thought about removing the "be" verb. 10% of the time it was awkward, which sucked.
That is just completely absurd. How would I even say that without using "is"? That .. is, no .. Complete absurdity is , no.. Complete absurdity dwells in that concept? That sounds like I'm trying to write some kind of poetry. The verb "to be" is one of the most important verbs of the entire language. Of any language, even in cases like Latin where it's not said but implied to be there. It is a fundamental tool of communication to equate the existential states of different concepts with the verb "to be". These writings must have sounded awful. No real writing ever avoids the use of "to be". Being is too important of a concept. Cogito ergo sum, as is said. Existential qualification is too important to throw away.
If you believe that, why did you use forms of "to be" just now? "when Im was in high school", "this is overly restrictive", "there was a better way", pretty much the only part of your post which would find favor with your English teacher was "it sucked".
I can't agree with her article. These are legitimate words with their own distinct connotations. Saying "very old" conveys a different idea than saying "ancient".
She's encouraging sensationalist writing where down-to-earth content would often be easier to understand and convey the author's meaning clearer and more accurately.
And then next week we will get an article on how not to alienate your readers with pointless, highfalutin language like "sagacious" and "jubilant."
It's a huge blind spot for writers to believe that repetition has a cost, but large vocabularies don't. This is ingrained in them by English teachers, because avoiding repetition and using lots of fancy words is hard work, and thus that is what teachers value.
For most readers, though, the opposite is closer to the truth: They will ignore repetition (or might even interpret it as useful structure) until the point where it becomes ridiculous, but they quickly get stuck on odd words or language usage that requires them to work to read a piece.
A small minority of prescriptive linguists: "People are saying FOO a lot. We don't like them saying FOO. Let's tell them not to say FOO and try to teach them alternatives."
I wonder what Orwell would think. As mentioned in an article on writing by Orwell, posted here some time ago, didn't he prefer simple constructions such as "very poor" to "destitute"? I wonder if he would think most of the recommendations are actually snobbish and more complex to understand.
Not saying Orwell is right and the article wrong. Just that this kind of recommendations is very subjective (quick, someone find me a replacement for "very subjective"!). A matter of taste, actually, and not all accomplished writers agree on this.
I'm of the opinion we should dispose of useless words. Why even have the word terrified in the dictionary when you can use very afraid?
Very good and you'd use superb? Over the dozens of other words that can be used to replace good? I say get rid of them all. I'd also go with the idea of removing antonyms in exchange for un- prefixed words because you do have the issue that antonyms are not exact opposite.
You also have the issue with the comparisons that very can be less intensive. Very wet does not mean soaked. Additionally, being anxious modernly implies a mixture of stress, worry, possibly fright. Potentially changing your meaning is not usually desired.
However, this article only describes how to avoid using very, and that may be a good goal. There are many times when you can better describe your meaning without using very. However, you cannot do it in every instance.
Avoiding words seems rather arbitrary. English has a lot of over-used words, for example the words "of", "a", "the", "with", etc, etc. It seems more likely to me that people just associate certain styles of writing with professional or amateur writers. Rather than the style of writing being objectively superior.
For example use of slang or misspellings becomes highly associated with the education or intelligence of the writer. This creates a feedback loop where people trying to appear as high-status as possible imitate the writing style, look up standardized spellings, avoid "less-formal" words, etc.
I'm not saying that this is true in this case, it's just something I notice.
This naturally lends itself to being implemented inside a tool that searches for the word "very" in a text and if the next word is one of those listed, replaces both with that occurrence.
Yeah, the list of alternates doesn't do much for me, but the notion of doing an edit pass looking for "very" so I can spot bad sentences does sound useful.
I find such tips handy for writing. Don't use "very"; avoid starting a sentence with "I" [1]; don't end words with "ly"; avoid "to be"; etc.
An excellent summary of such tips is Stephen King's On Writing. While the bulk of it is interesting (autobiography), the 16-page section "Toolbox" is a fantastic collection of writing guidance. Highly recommended, to the point that I look for opportunities to mention it.
[1] - I know. Selective breaking of rules has its place too.
"Avoiding starting with 'I'" sounds context-dependent. In a journal article, sure, that's bad form, but here on HN in a more conversational environment I don't see a problem.
I remember learning about this in my creative writing classes in college, and the other great tip we got at about the same time was to do something similar when writing in past tense by ditching the "ings" and changing references like "he was running home" with "he ran home" or "she was burning the papers" with "she burned the papers". It turns out that too many "ings" can make a story drag.
There's a difference in meaning between "he ran home" and "he was running home." Most people aren't aware enough of the language they use to avoid overusing certain things, but mechanical transformations aren't the answer. One should aspire to learn how language works, and then use it appropriately.
I would love to see a dataset of English word-pairs rated by their severity (i.e., how much "very" applies to modify the first to get the second on a scale from -1 to 1).
For example, "quiet" would have "silent" rated as 1, "roomy" might have "spacious" listed close to 0, and "gorgeous" would have "pretty" as negative.
That was a very good article. I've wanted to read something like that for a very long time, but it's very difficult to find such material of very hiqh quality.
notlisted|12 years ago
Many words in the "rather say" column hinder clear communication.
* If a dictionary visit is required, you've failed the audience.
* If multiple interpretations are possible, you've failed yourself.
Ex:
- Sagacious is out of favor since 1920 (google ngram).
- Solemn vs 'very serious' (implies religious aspects where there were none)
- Accomplished vs 'very capable (implies having attained something, not the potential to do so)
- Unyielding vs 'very strong' (replacement rarely applies) etc etc
thirsteh|12 years ago
> If a dictionary visit is required, you've failed the audience.
If you take this to its logical conclusion, we end up in a world where English ceases to be the language of Shakespeare and more like dogespeak. No one will be morose anymore, just very sad, and no one will know what it means to be awestruck.
Someone will always need a dictionary. That shouldn't make us afraid to show that we have a vocabulary spanning more than 500 words, or that we have an education at all. God forbid we encourage others to stop talking or writing like 16-year-olds on E! TV.
Timmmmbob|12 years ago
xvolter|12 years ago
teh_klev|12 years ago
I disagree, I very much enjoy having my vocabulary enriched by having to visit a dictionary now and again. If you are an english speaker and reader (regardless of whether it's your first, second or third language) visits to the dictionary are a good thing.
sdegutis|12 years ago
igorgue|12 years ago
Maciek416|12 years ago
There seem to be many words which are useful in conversation but for whatever reason are not that good for efficient writing, or so overused in speech (for lack of better words as one scrambles for word choice in real time) that it's hard to avoid using them in writing.
sabbatic13|12 years ago
InclinedPlane|12 years ago
Zikes|12 years ago
dllthomas|12 years ago
walshemj|12 years ago
Apologizes for using footballer speak :-)
coenhyde|12 years ago
JetSpiegel|12 years ago
jeremysmyth|12 years ago
As a side note, I was always amused by the number of generic superlatives available in many languages. In English, we've already got "very", and "damn" as the site mentions, along with "really", "extremely", "amazingly" and so on. In British English, you can say "bloody" or "damnedly" or "shockingly" or "terribly" or any of a vast number of other superlatives, not to ignore the crass "fucking".
My favourite has to be the French "vachement", which could be translated as "cowly".
tptacek|12 years ago
Reebz|12 years ago
nmc|12 years ago
It comes from "vache", which is the French noun for "cow", but can also be used familiarly as an adjective that roughly translates to "nasty".
If you enjoyed "vachement", you will be happy to know that the French noun "bœuf" (the second letter is made of an O and an E), which became "beef" in English, can also be used familiarly as an adjective meaning something along "intense".
ozh|12 years ago
samatman|12 years ago
The rule should be respected but not treated with due deference
The use for truth or 'verity' is evident but venerable
We very much avoid the use of very much in general.
gertef|12 years ago
The rule should be respected but with only its due deference
The use for truth or 'verity' is evident and venerable
We very much avoid the use of very much in general.
mhartl|12 years ago
bane|12 years ago
English can be assembled in all kinds of wonderful and creative ways. The best writing is when you coin a phrase that style guides insist shouldn't work, but communicate something beautifully. "Most excellent", for example, is a wonderful example. It's concise, it's nonstandard and it's brings about vivid imagery of two time travelling wanna be rock stars.
The worst style guides are outright wrong. "very afraid" doesn't mean "terrified". How lame does "be afraid, be very afraid" sounds as "be afraid, be terrified"? "very poor" doesn't mean "destitute", I grew up very poor, but we were never destitute. Being "very rude" is has a very different connotation from "vulgar". This guide takes finely graded connotations and turns them into extremes.
It's worth using it to double check if what you mean is the extreme, and you accidentally used something else, but beyond that, a search and replace of "very <word>" with any of these suggestions is likely to make your writing worse.
English can be beautiful, enjoy it.
sker|12 years ago
bane|12 years ago
Interestingly, the forms that you liken to "beautiful" actually parse to a native English speaker as "attractive but not quite beautiful".
So, on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the top), "pretty" has the connotation of maybe a 7 or 8 on any scale, beauty or otherwise. And that's basically how it always parses out in English. Just consider it as a 7-8 whatever on a 1-10 scale.
note if the scale is inverse, it's the same. Suppose 1-10 was a scale of ugliness (with 10 being most ugly) "pretty ugly" is still a 7-8 on that scale. Same with "pretty cold" if the 10 means "coldest possible".
"very" is used to emphasize something. "She's very pretty." Means she's somewhere between pretty and outright beautiful, but more on the beautiful side ("she's almost beautiful" has a bad connotation that there's something wrong with her).
"It's very hot" would mean not only is it hot, but it's a little extra hot.
It's like adding a .5 to anything on that 10 point scale.
So if "hot" is 10, very hot is a 10.5.
You rarely use it with words that have a moderate intention, except for specific effect, "it's very lukewarm" is not something you'd probably regularly hear. But "it's very cold" is.
DanBC|12 years ago
"This curry is pretty hot" would mean it is hot, and hotter than normal, but not very hot in the context of curries.
So there's something in there about the context and that it is a modifier for "more" but not "much more".
delluminatus|12 years ago
adriand|12 years ago
dec0dedab0de|12 years ago
maw|12 years ago
sabbatic13|12 years ago
gweinberg|12 years ago
delluminatus|12 years ago
gamblor956|12 years ago
grecy|12 years ago
habosa|12 years ago
Of course this is overly restrictive, but 80-90% of the time there was a better way to phrase the sentence if you thought about removing the "be" verb. 10% of the time it was awkward, which sucked.
Aside: also taught me that MS Word has a very advanced find feature where I could give it "be" and it would find me all of the above conjugations.
JoshTriplett|12 years ago
> Of course this is overly restrictive, but 80-90% of the time there was a better way to phrase the sentence if you thought about removing the "be" verb. 10% of the time it was awkward, which sucked.
I do the same thing, habitually, as a tool to improve my writing, inspired by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime .
jimmaswell|12 years ago
gweinberg|12 years ago
tptacek|12 years ago
roflc0ptic|12 years ago
sdegutis|12 years ago
She's encouraging sensationalist writing where down-to-earth content would often be easier to understand and convey the author's meaning clearer and more accurately.
susi22|12 years ago
http://paste.ubuntu.com/6949984/
oneeyedpigeon|12 years ago
g3orge|12 years ago
Zikes|12 years ago
bagosm|12 years ago
Although the technical mind I think is bugged more about precision rather than flow or poeticness of speech Ι think we can appreciate it...
wavefunction|12 years ago
chc|12 years ago
It's a huge blind spot for writers to believe that repetition has a cost, but large vocabularies don't. This is ingrained in them by English teachers, because avoiding repetition and using lots of fancy words is hard work, and thus that is what teachers value.
For most readers, though, the opposite is closer to the truth: They will ignore repetition (or might even interpret it as useful structure) until the point where it becomes ridiculous, but they quickly get stuck on odd words or language usage that requires them to work to read a piece.
oneeyedpigeon|12 years ago
Everybody else: "FOO"
And the world keeps on turning.
the_af|12 years ago
Not saying Orwell is right and the article wrong. Just that this kind of recommendations is very subjective (quick, someone find me a replacement for "very subjective"!). A matter of taste, actually, and not all accomplished writers agree on this.
xvolter|12 years ago
I'm of the opinion we should dispose of useless words. Why even have the word terrified in the dictionary when you can use very afraid?
Very good and you'd use superb? Over the dozens of other words that can be used to replace good? I say get rid of them all. I'd also go with the idea of removing antonyms in exchange for un- prefixed words because you do have the issue that antonyms are not exact opposite.
You also have the issue with the comparisons that very can be less intensive. Very wet does not mean soaked. Additionally, being anxious modernly implies a mixture of stress, worry, possibly fright. Potentially changing your meaning is not usually desired.
However, this article only describes how to avoid using very, and that may be a good goal. There are many times when you can better describe your meaning without using very. However, you cannot do it in every instance.
gruseom|12 years ago
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/08/29/substitute-damn/
He never said that the coldest winter he spent was a summer in San Francisco either. Damn.
Houshalter|12 years ago
For example use of slang or misspellings becomes highly associated with the education or intelligence of the writer. This creates a feedback loop where people trying to appear as high-status as possible imitate the writing style, look up standardized spellings, avoid "less-formal" words, etc.
I'm not saying that this is true in this case, it's just something I notice.
cliveowen|12 years ago
tptacek|12 years ago
JadeNB|12 years ago
ctdonath|12 years ago
An excellent summary of such tips is Stephen King's On Writing. While the bulk of it is interesting (autobiography), the 16-page section "Toolbox" is a fantastic collection of writing guidance. Highly recommended, to the point that I look for opportunities to mention it.
[1] - I know. Selective breaking of rules has its place too.
jerf|12 years ago
dpcan|12 years ago
I remember learning about this in my creative writing classes in college, and the other great tip we got at about the same time was to do something similar when writing in past tense by ditching the "ings" and changing references like "he was running home" with "he ran home" or "she was burning the papers" with "she burned the papers". It turns out that too many "ings" can make a story drag.
sabbatic13|12 years ago
caiob|12 years ago
buckbova|12 years ago
aytekin|12 years ago
j2kun|12 years ago
For example, "quiet" would have "silent" rated as 1, "roomy" might have "spacious" listed close to 0, and "gorgeous" would have "pretty" as negative.
unknown|12 years ago
[deleted]
emmelaich|12 years ago
snake_plissken|12 years ago
sdegutis|12 years ago
Wat.
jameshart|12 years ago
farginay|12 years ago
felipellrocha|12 years ago
nikbackm|12 years ago
coldtea|12 years ago
To whoever posted this, thank you very much.
hmsimha|12 years ago
gertef|12 years ago
Other acceptable alternatives:
s/very/fantastically/
s/very/heart-breakingly/
s/very/awesomely/
s/very/literally/
snogglethorpe|12 years ago
SkyMarshal|12 years ago
jotm|12 years ago
JoeAltmaier|12 years ago
unknown|12 years ago
[deleted]
mcv|12 years ago
TheSOB888|12 years ago
trekky1700|12 years ago
SeanDav|12 years ago
davidw|12 years ago
-- Heathers
vezzy-fnord|12 years ago
boobsbr|12 years ago
be careful not to overuse hyperboles.
dksidana|12 years ago
joesmo|12 years ago
I find it hard to argue with Strunk on this and most other things related to writing.