I like very though. It's very very veritably vivacious.
I can't stand people who care about this stuff. The purpose of language is communication. If you understood what was said, the language used did it's job. Those alternatives to very are valid and if your intent is precision then I can see why you would use them. But my counter argument is, "very" is understood by a wider audience and is less confusing.
The same reasoning applies in programming does it not? Is it not considered good coding practice to use syntax and features that are easily understood by junior devs? Shouldn't complex syntax and features be used sparingly where needed?
When is superb required over "very nice"?
The reality is that language does have rules and for good reason. But grammar nazis use their superior knowledge of those rules to gatekeep random things and use those rules to manipulate others to their advantage.
Using rarely used words in a langauge is just as bad as using jargon or rare dialects.
If a random 2.0 gpa highschool kid can understand you. Your vocabulary is perfect.
|I can't stand people who care about this stuff. The purpose of language is communication.
Your response makes me think of Kevin from the office... “Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick"
Yes, the point of language is communication, but why limit yourself? Elevate your vocabulary! Eloquence is enjoyable. Increased nuance adds depth to expression. Instead of relying on vanilla words like "very," embrace the richness of language.
"Few word" is quantity, this is a quality question.
If you are writing to sound eloquent and for the joy of writing then you are not who I am talking about. For most people, especially in a work setting, communication is the goal, to make sure you are understood well.
There is a famous story of a british platoon in ww2 I think calling for US navy support and saying something like "we are in a bit of trouble" or something like that, the US navy commander thought that meant they need help but not urgently so they were deprioritized and died. If both sides used simple and well understood language it would have been avoided. Your eloquence or someone else's use of jargon, jive, localized english,etc... is a miscommunication liability.
To be honest this is one of the more genius things Kevin has said. I respected him for it.
To me complaining about very is some sort of cringey pseudointelligent competition.
In many cases trying to use something else instead of very will add some weird implication or undertone that makes the meaning seem unnecessarily different.
Don't make language more complicated than it needs to be.
Imagine cooking with no herbs or spices, save for salt. Your food would be nutritionally complete and inoffensive, but bland. You could translate novels into Simple English or Newspeak, but would you enjoy reading them?
And isn't it a bit patronizing to assume that English learners want to settle for being understood rather than being felt?
I care about it in my own writing. I know I overuse certain phrases and it bothers me. For long-form writing I use iA Writer and have it flag words on my denylist whenever they creep into my text. I wish I could use that everywhere.
>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.
Literally never heard the word morose before as a native speaker. Very works just fine and doesn't have nearly as much of a problem of being the 'wrong' word to use when you don't know, versus someone looking at this list and then trying to say something like 'abysmally tired'.
That's not really very good advice. It's good to have a wide vocabulary, but substituting one phrase for another isn't really an improvement. The words mean something slightly different. Poetry happens when you choose precisely the word you want.
Even better is to avoid the adjective entirely, unless that is precisely what you want. Usually a poet will want to stir the emotion, which is better shown than told. You have to dig really deep to find a way to express what that sadness means, which will usually not involve the word "sad" at all. Use of the word "very" is a strong hint that you have more to say by phrasing it entirely differently.
He's right about the wooing women, though. Not literally, but that's the right way to teach teenage boys. Women dig men who communicate well.
Counterpoint: very tiree and exhausted are two different levels of weariness. Exhausted means you've reached capacity. Very tired means you are tired much but not yet exhausted. You reduced specificity for the sake of conformity.
Which is also couched in off-puttingly heterocentric language. What if you’re not a boy, and what if you’re not interested in wooing women? Is just not a very big deal to be lazy in that case?
It's a movie from 1989 about an all-boys school in 1959 that still managed to include a bunch of LGBTQ subtext; I think it's fair to read this line as commentary on lazy writing instead of sexuality.
I can't stand people who care about this stuff. The purpose of language is communication. If you understood what was said, the language used did it's job. Those alternatives to very are valid and if your intent is precision then I can see why you would use them. But my counter argument is, "very" is understood by a wider audience and is less confusing.
The same reasoning applies in programming does it not? Is it not considered good coding practice to use syntax and features that are easily understood by junior devs? Shouldn't complex syntax and features be used sparingly where needed?
When is superb required over "very nice"?
The reality is that language does have rules and for good reason. But grammar nazis use their superior knowledge of those rules to gatekeep random things and use those rules to manipulate others to their advantage.
Using rarely used words in a langauge is just as bad as using jargon or rare dialects.
If a random 2.0 gpa highschool kid can understand you. Your vocabulary is perfect.