"So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays." -- The Dead Poets Society
I think it was Mencken that most popularly called this sort of thing sophomoric, and chastised "schoolma'ams" trying to impart conscious thought and logic into the unthinking that don't much care for what it is they're doing (e.g. writing, composing music, etc.). I think using "very lazy" is quite fine. If you're not just simply lazy, but much more so -- yet fall short of *exceptionally* lazy: you are very lazy. The…
It's also important to note that this type of substitution is very context-dependent. A very tired person may be exhausted, but a very tired joke is definitely not.