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Replace the “very” in your sentence

losethevery.com

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Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence

#191

Post by Planktonne »

This is one of the most pernicious pieces of cargo-cult writing advice that gets smeared all over the internet.

When writing, you should think carefully about your word choice, and adapt it for your audience, context, intended effect, etc.

"Lose the very" is the exact opposite of thinking carefully. It ignores all the subtle shades of meaning that different words bring. Almost no words have direct swap-in synonyms.

If you follow this advice, you end up with a mess of incoherent verbiage that (probably) says something very different to what was intended.

Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence

#192

Post by jaza »

dmichulke wrote: post #122

Obligatory reminder of the elative: In German: sehr schnell (very fast) -> blitzschnell (lightning fast) sehr gross (very big) -> riesengross (giant big) sehr reich (very rich) -> steinreich (stone rich) sehr arm (very poor) -> bettelarm (beggar poor) It's a bit easier vocab-wise for foreigners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elative_(gradation)

"Lightning fast" is probably the most-recognised expression for "very fast" in English too. Not sure that there's an obvious candidate for "very big". And we have "stinking rich" and "dirt poor". A few more: "stone deaf", "stark naked", "blind drunk", "certifiably insane", "squeaky clean", "dog tired", "piping hot", "ice cold".

Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence

#194

Post by zeroxp »

Planktonne wrote: post #191

This is one of the most pernicious pieces of cargo-cult writing advice that gets smeared all over the internet. When writing, you should think carefully about your word choice, and adapt it for your audience, context, intended effect, etc. "Lose the very" is the exact opposite of thinking carefully. It ignores all the subtle shades of meaning that different words bring. Almost no words have direct swap-in synonyms. I…

When you say very different, you could have just said skittish. "It's skittish from what you intended". Isn't that much better?

Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence

#196

Post by tsimionescu »

Vox_Leone wrote: post #112
wizofaus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And "telephone" comes from roots meaning "sound at a distance" or "far away sound". That doesn't make it right to say you heard the "telephone of laughter" when you meant to say the "distant sound of laughter" .

Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence

#198

Post by davidkunz »

In programming, mathematics and physics, our goal is to express our thoughts in a concise way without introducing too many different concepts.

Applied to language, the word 'very' is great. It can be used in many occasions and is generally understood. What's wrong with that?

Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence

#199

Post by skrebbel »

qwery wrote: post #182
skrebbel wrote: post #161

You can also just drop the “very”. There’s no need for a fancy word to replace the thing you’re very very about. 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...

Very tall people are taller than tall people. (Of course) you can (always) (just) remove words from a sentence. The (very) idea that doing so will (always) result in a "better" sentence is nonsensical. The Empire State Building is a very tall building, but it is not the tallest. King Kong is a tall gorilla, and he is the tallest. Many examples are contrived. This example is contrived. I'm sorry, but I'm not very sorr…

Sure, I should've written "It'll often be better".
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