[Le me, attempting to replace 'very + x' with single posh word]
- "Are you Dr Watson?"
- "The very same"
- "Ah. Don't you mean ... the indistinguishable?"
- "... no."
[Fail]
Replace the “very” in your sentence
281–290 of 295 posts
Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence
#282Usage of "very" in the collected works of Shakespeare's: https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results.... (some of these are false positives, e.g. "this very sword", where it's not used as an intensifier) I don't understand this quest that certain pencil-pushers seem to have with wanting to restrict the usage of certain words or even entire grammatical constructions (e.g. the crusade against the passiv…
I recall getting into trouble at school for (probably argumentatively & disruptively) pointing out occurrences of 'said' in published works, which is the word I remember being taught not to use more so than 'very'. They wanted every bit of dialogue to be broadcast or yelled or shouted or explained or cried and so on. If you actually read something like that it's bloody tedious, unless you're going for Homeric I think…
Yeah, I was also taught the silly rule in school that you shouldn't say "said" all the time. I don't know where it comes from, but texts that use this rule extensively just read like what a schoolkid would write, not an actual author.
The point of careful and nuanced words is that you should use them where it matters. In many cases, especially in prose, it doesn't and "said" is more than enough.
(oh and also, despite its flowery language at times, Homeric language is full of repetitive turns of phrases too)
Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
ESL is standard in English english too.
Never heard it in England as a foreign student in a British university.
Well, my first wife was a schoolteacher, and my daughter is a schoolteacher. My second wife was a careers adviser. My son taught English as a second language for a while. So perhaps it's "trade jargon" that I have integrated.
Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence
#284Adjectives are marketing for nouns.
Adverbs are commercials for verbs. "Literally", "actually", "truly", "unquestionably", "honestly", "totally", "so", ... are useless.
Damn ad's.
Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence
#285On one hand, I think this kind of service can help people expand their vocabularies. On the other hand, there's a downside risk of replacing unimaginative writing with confused writing. "very + fragile -> feeble" is absolutely not a reliable translation[1]. The suggestions furnished by this service seem to generally 'work' in the sense that their possible meanings include "very + (category)," but without context you…
Regarding your [1], I think people reach for "very" for two different reasons: because they habitually "overseason" their sentences, adding intensifiers when the underlying language is already intense, or because they "underseason" them with limp adjectives that they're trying to pump up. The former people just need to build their confidence to drop "very". The latter need something like this site to help learn bette…
I think my point is that these adjectives are not "better" - they are different. They mean different things, which you might also mean, but aren't good "drop in" replacements.
Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence
#286As a native speaker, my reply is: no[1] Firstly this appears to be a way to boast about the size of your vocabulary. That's great, but, frankly you are walking into a bigarsed zone of unintended connotations. Its more than likely to do the exact opposite. Second, half of the suggestions are wrong. for example "very ashamed" is not the same as repentant. shame and regret are two similar things, but not the same. same…
> All of you who want to sound either more "well read", or more native, this website will lead you astray. I wholeheartedly agree that excessive and unnecessary verbiage can be a tiresome impediment to the clear transmission of ideas. That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to say. A wide vocabulary is particularly useful when addressing complex subjects.
> That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to say
And also the fewer people who can understand what you say.
Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence
#287It's extremely odd how people focus on very when there are a staggeringly large number of other emphasis words. It's a supremely rediculous bias.
Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence
#288When emphasising language becomes habitual, it's intended impact may actually be lessened, by way of the "boy crying wolf" effect. That is, if everything is described as "very" and "really" and "actually", then those emphasisers no longer stand out. We start to ignore them, and the collective energy spent writing them is somewhat wasted. So I say: let a standalone word suffice, whenever possible. Save emphasis for ap…
> somewhat wasted
Sounds like a lost Cheech & Chong movie, right?
Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence
#289As a native speaker, my reply is: no[1] Firstly this appears to be a way to boast about the size of your vocabulary. That's great, but, frankly you are walking into a bigarsed zone of unintended connotations. Its more than likely to do the exact opposite. Second, half of the suggestions are wrong. for example "very ashamed" is not the same as repentant. shame and regret are two similar things, but not the same. same…
> All of you who want to sound either more "well read", or more native, this website will lead you astray. I wholeheartedly agree that excessive and unnecessary verbiage can be a tiresome impediment to the clear transmission of ideas. That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to say. A wide vocabulary is particularly useful when addressing complex subjects.
> That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to say.
Sure, you can say more things. That's great, if your goal is to talk a lot without caring if anyone else around you is listening to what you're saying.
Re: Replace the “very” in your sentence
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All of you who want to sound either more "well read", or more native, this website will lead you astray. I wholeheartedly agree that excessive and unnecessary verbiage can be a tiresome impediment to the clear transmission of ideas. That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to say. A wide vocabulary is particularly useful when addressing complex subjects.
> That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to say. Sure, you can say more things. That's great, if your goal is to talk a lot without caring if anyone else around you is listening to what you're saying.
Language should be task-appropriate. I teach computational aesthetics which would be impossible with the same bucket of words I use to go shopping for apples.