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Ways to avoid using the word 'very'

writerswrite.co.za

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Re: Ways to avoid using the word 'very'

#81

Post by dllthomas »

joesmo wrote: post #77
sabbatic13 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In this case, the rule is just not to use the word "very." I can't think of a single context where "very" doesn't degrade from the semantics and syntax of a sentence. I think this rule is appropriate to any and every style.

I don't know what it means to "degrade from the semantics and syntax of a sentence".

Re: Ways to avoid using the word 'very'

#82

Post by odonnellryan »

joesmo wrote: post #77
sabbatic13 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In this case, the rule is just not to use the word "very." I can't think of a single context where "very" doesn't degrade from the semantics and syntax of a sentence. I think this rule is appropriate to any and every style.

You've just used it, in context, effectively!

Re: Ways to avoid using the word 'very'

#83

Post by glomph »

tptacek wrote: post #8
jeremysmyth wrote: post #2

But what if I want to say "very terrified"? 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…

Terrified isn't a gradable adjective (it appears to be a textbook example, in fact).

Some of the best writing of course breaks rules on gradable adjectives though.

Re: Ways to avoid using the word 'very'

#84

Post by gamblor956 »

gweinberg wrote: post #54

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.

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.

Re: Ways to avoid using the word 'very'

#85

Post by dllthomas »

gweinberg wrote: post #70
dllthomas wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or it might be useful to do te exact opposite: analyze your writing to determine where you are using obscure words when there are common words which mean the exact same thing.

That is not quite the exact opposite, as they draw from different corpora. Both would be interesting and quite possibly useful.

Re: Ways to avoid using the word 'very'

#86

Post by joesmo »

“Rather, very, little, pretty -- these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words." -- William Strunk Jr.

I find it hard to argue with Strunk on this and most other things related to writing.

Re: Ways to avoid using the word 'very'

#87

Post by dec0dedab0de »

sker wrote: post #37

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.

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.

Re: Ways to avoid using the word 'very'

#90

Post by delluminatus »

sker wrote: post #37

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.

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.
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