161–170 of 295 posts
For example, if you’re writing “very tall”, change it into “tall” and re-read the sentence. It’ll be better.
I learned this by reading Scott Adams’ excellent 3-minute essay on writing: https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the...
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Great movie but not the best advice - "morose" doesn't even mean "very sad", it means ill-tempered/in a bad mood. I wouldn't even say there is one good word that means "very sad", but "morose" is definitely not it. The site in question came up with "inconsolable", but that's hardly appropriate if you're talking about "very sad news" (after a few attempts it come back with "somber" which at least sort of works in that…
Not meant to school or lecture anyone, but ‘morose’ stems from the Latin ‘mora’, meaning ‘delay', something slow. Examples from Latin.: _mora solvendi_ (delay in paying), _compensatio morae_ (compensation for the delay). I believe that the original meaning is lost [or warped at least] when it becomes synonymous with bleak, cheerless, chill, Cimmerian, cloudy, cold, depressing... But since it means ‘slow’ it also rela…
"To install this package, simply ..."
very lazy
I think generally it's a good idea to avoid excessive adverbs and adjectives, but sometimes I consciously choose to use not even just 'very', but 'very, very', in cases where the simplicity of language and the excessive repetition feels appropriate to the situation. Usually in very informal online speech.
'Very' serves an important purpose, but it's most effective at it when you restrict it to situations where you absolutely need it.
I ran a few words through and I am not willing to buy into the elimination of very. As noted (very or not) unique and incomparable are not the same. These words have nuanced differences. Every word I checked failed to provide the a proper equivalent. Context matters. very hard is not always demanding very clean =/= sparkling very old =/= ancient very dark =/= bleak
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> An alternative is to use the "plus-" and "doubleplus-" prefixes. I've never come across that, that sounds plus-awkward to me, but is it some sort of pan-language standard? And did I do it correctly?
it is an Orwell reference. "double-plus good" was part of the Newspeak in his novel 1984 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/double-plus-good
This building is very tall - this building is so tall.
This website is the epitome of "do one thing and do it well" Bravo