What are unnecessary words?
A word which adds nothing extra to a sentence is called a pleonasm. A word which merely repeats the meaning of another word in an expression is called a tautology. These are both cases of redundant words and can be omitted.
- Replace Redundant Adjectives.
- Remove Redundant Pairs and Categories.
- Take Out Words That State the Obvious and Add Excess Detail.
- Remove Unnecessary Determiners and Modifiers.
- Use the Key Noun. ...
- Use Active Voice Rather Than Passive Voice Verbs. ...
- Avoid Unnecessary Language. ...
- Use Nouns Rather Than Vague Pronouns as Subjects. ...
- Use Verbs Rather Than Nouns to Express Action. ...
- Avoid a String of Prepositional Phrases.
Wordy: Due to the fact that class is cancelled, we will postpone the quiz. Better: Because class is cancelled, we will postpone the quiz. Wordy: In spite of the fact that I am failing, I have enjoyed the class. Better: Although I am failing, I have enjoyed the class.
- Moist. Moist is by far the clear winner when it comes to least favorite words. ...
- Flap. It can be used to refer to a bird in flight, or extra skin, or, you get the idea. ...
- Whatever. ...
- Dude. ...
- Like. ...
- Literally. ...
- Flaccid. ...
- Panties.
- Really, very. These are useless modifiers. ...
- That. If a sentence still makes sense after removing “that,” delete it. ...
- Just. ...
- Then. ...
- Totally, completely, absolutely, literally. ...
- Definitely, certainly, probably, actually, basically, virtually. ...
- Start, begin, began, begun. ...
- Rather, quite, somewhat, somehow.
- Delete "The" You can often omit the word “the” from your text without losing any meaning. ...
- Erase “That” ...
- Remove Adverbs and Adjectives. ...
- Use Shorter Words. ...
- Trim Wordy Phrases. ...
- Choose Active Voice. ...
- Revise Needless Transitions. ...
- Eliminate Conjunctions.
- Delete unnecessary words, such as “that” and “the”
- Erase unneeded adverbs and adjectives.
- Eliminate redundancies.
- Use an active voice.
- Remove unnecessary information.
wordy, verbose, prolix, diffuse mean using more words than necessary to express thought. wordy may also imply loquaciousness or garrulity. a wordy speech. verbose suggests a resulting dullness, obscurity, or lack of incisiveness or precision.
Up to a certain point, it's good to be wordy. This doesn't mean there's not a line to be drawn. There's a difference between showing creativity and merely trying to stuff your writing with synonyms to look impressive. And chances are if you're doing the latter, it's obvious to your reader.
How can we stop overused words?
...
Replace weak phrases with strong word choices
- Ask a colleague to look over your next project or email.
- Keep a list of your patterns that you've identified, and check the list each time you write.
- Look up synonyms for overused words in a thesaurus.
The longest sentence award goes to: Jonathan Coe's The Rotter's Club, 13,955 word sentence.
Appropriate Sentence Length
Try to keep the average sentence length of your document around 20–25 words. This is a good rule of thumb to convey your meaning in a balanced way and avoiding a marathon or choppy sentences. The number varies as per the field, audience, or the nature of writing.
Avoid sentences that contain more information than the reader can easily follow.
1. Serendipity. This word appears in numerous lists of untranslatable words and is a mystery mostly for non native speakers of English.
The longest word in any of the major English language dictionaries is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, a word that refers to a lung disease contracted from the inhalation of very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano; medically, it is the same as silicosis.
Lazy words are filler words. They act similar to verbal pauses in speech. As an example, I fell prey to “just” in graduate school.
- "You have no choice."
- "It's not hard."
- "Sorry."
- "That reminds me..."
- "Someone has to tell you..."
- "I know how you feel."
- "Can't you just..."
- "I don't want to fight, but ..."
prohibited Add to list Share. When something is prohibited, it's not allowed.
- Can't. Never say something can't be done – it's harsh and often untrue. ...
- No. Big clarification here – saying no is a big part of being a manager. ...
- Wrong. ...
- Fault. ...
- Never. ...
- Stupid. ...
- Impossible.
How many pages is 60 0000 words?
60,000 words is 120 pages single spaced, 240 pages double spaced.
- 1) Selectively remove articles “the” or “a” ...
- 2) Remove commas between spaces in citation numbers. ...
- 3) Eliminate spaces around “=” ...
- 4) For ranges, replace “to” with a hyphen. ...
- 5) Remove “that” ...
- 6) Replace “more than” or “less than” with “>” or “<”
If you go substantially past the word limit, you risk having your essay cut off by an online application form or having the admissions officer just not finish it. And if you're too far under the word limit, you may not be elaborating enough.
Word count includes everything in the main body of the text (including headings, tables, citations, quotes, lists, etc). The list of references, appendices and footnotes2 are NOT included in the word count unless it is clearly stated in the coursework instructions that the module is an exception to this rule.
Tables, diagrams (including associated legends), appendices, references, footnotes and endnotes, the bibliography and any bound published material are excluded from the word count.
I explain that when it comes to word count, there is a maximum, say 3,000 words, but no minimum. If they can show they understand everything they should understand in 500 words, great! However, unless they are an exceptional writer, they should expect to fail if they submit too little.
- Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (45 letters) ...
- Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (36 letters) ...
- Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (34 letters) ...
- Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (30 letters) ...
- Floccinaucinihilipilification (29 letters)
`Howdy' is an informal way of saying `Hello. ' [US, dialect, formulae]
Some common synonyms of wordy are diffuse, prolix, and verbose. While all these words mean "using more words than necessary to express thought," wordy may also imply loquaciousness or garrulity.
wordy, verbose, prolix, diffuse mean using more words than necessary to express thought. wordy may also imply loquaciousness or garrulity. a wordy speech. verbose suggests a resulting dullness, obscurity, or lack of incisiveness or precision.
Is using big words pretentious?
Stop trying to sound so smart!
If you're looking for a big word for that — it's pretentious. “Few people have the patience to read or listen to artificially complex language. You've probably come across business memos that were written in such dense language that you had no idea what they meant.
Using big, “five-dollar words” (as my 5th grade teacher once called them) seems like an obvious way to achieve this—but, as recent research shows, it's almost guaranteed to backfire. It turns out that trying too hard to sound smart by using big, scholarly sounding words actually makes you sound dumber.
Also known as discourse markers, filler words are what we use when we don't know what else to say. More often than not, they're unintentional; we use them subconsciously to fill the space or time while we prepare our main message. Fillers words are most prevalent in speech.
UNNECESSARY (adjective) definition and synonyms | Macmillan Dictionary.
Filler words are unnecessary words that many writers use, either intentionally or unintentionally, that do not contribute to clarifying their points or arguments.
Logorrhea. noun : excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness. Perhaps the expressions of the overtalker in your life are of a more noisome type.