How to not write bad - Ben Yagoda 2013

Words and phrases - Really quick fix: avoid these words!
How to not write bad

Some writing adjustments are hard. But eliminating or at least sharply reducing these words from your prose is painless and shows swift results.

a. Unique

Unique is a much-hated word, but I actually hate it for different reasons than most people do. The most frequent complaint is that it technically means one of a kind but is commonly used to mean unusual:

[The most unique thing about him is that he has a fauxhawk.]

The argument goes that there are no degrees of uniqueness; either a thing is unique or it isn’t. Consequently:

He has a fauxhawk.

Or take a look at these two sentences from a student’s profile of a librarian (whose name has been changed):

[When the thought of a typical librarian comes to mind, Associate Librarian Raymond McCarthy tries to steer clear of the typical stereotypes associated with the other employees working in the campus library. His everyday attire and approachability prove that he is much more unique than the average librarian.]

Unique is hardly the only problem in the passage; wordiness, stereotyping, cliché, and a dangling modifier come to mind right off the bat. But the U-word, along with the repetition of typical, is probably the most easily addressed. That is, if you want to say he’s approachable and wears everyday attire, just say so, and leave the issue of uniqueness out of it. (Of course, it would be better to specify exactly what he’s wearing, and give an example of his approachability.)

Nonunique unique is certainly something to be concerned with, but even worse, to me, is the now very common use of unique as a synonym for admirable, impressive, or some quality that is vaguely positive but has no other attributes. For an assignment in which students were asked to nominate a Web site for the Pulitzer Prize in online journalism, someone in my class wrote:

[The criteria that made this site able to be nominated are because of the uniqueness of the content it possesses.]

Again, one looks on a veritable cavalcade of infelicities, leading off with bad parallelism, infelicitous use of the passive, and wordiness. What’s being said, I think, is:

The site has excellent content.

Then there’s this:

[Iron Hill is a unique restaurant that’s a favorite for Homecoming and Graduation.]

Not only is that advertising-speak, but it’s bad advertising-speak. If you take the effort to find out or figure out something real (the opposite of advertising-speak), you will produce a stronger sentence.

Iron Hill is already fully booked for Homecoming and Graduation.

I’ll pause here because the above example illustrated a point that’s going to come up again and again in this section. Being unique-less isn’t the only reason why the second version is better. It also has a piece of relevant and specific information: the fact that the restaurant is sold out. The writer of the first sentence doesn’t know much about Iron Hill—other than a vague sense that it’s popular—and has produced weak writing. The writer of the second sentence has taken the trouble to find out an important fact and has used it to produce strong writing.

This is no coincidence. If you are un- or underinformed about your subject, you will hem and haw, engage in the passive voice and qualifiers, and overgeneralize. If you take the trouble to fully research it—and, equally important, think hard and rigorously about it—you’ll be specific, precise, and authoritative. In other words, knowledge leads to good writing. That is simply a corollary of perhaps the most important of all writing mantras: show, don’t tell.

This issue never, ever goes away, because telling is much easier than showing. You can sit back in your easy chair, pluck a few adjectives out of the thesaurus, and you’re off to the races. To show, you have to get up off your butt: literally, by doing some research and reporting, or figuratively, by going beyond your initial top-of-the-head thought and lifting and arranging some nouns and verbs.

(I hereby give you permission to use unique if you really and truly mean that the thing being described is one of a kind, cross your heart.)

b. Literally

In conversation, it’s no big deal to use literally when you mean figuratively. If you said, for example, “I literally turned the house upside down looking for that checkbook,” your listeners would understand that your house is still on its foundation. However, this literally literally makes for bad habits and therefore bad writing. No one will misunderstand you, but your readers will raise a collective eyebrow. You might be tempted to use the word when it’s technically correct—for example, writing I was literally up all night in reference to a night in which you did not sleep. Resist the temptation and stay away from literally. It’s stronger and cleaner to serve the facts straight up: I was up all night.

c. Myself

The English language is being inundated with myselfs, the result, I think, of creeping wordiness and uncertainty in many cases over whether I or me is correct. So we get a lot of:

[The people signing the document were George Parkinson, Leila Fischer, and myself.]

[The other players and myself left the field soon afterward.]

In the second example, myself should be replaced with I. That’s true in the first example as well, but it’s not as obvious. You can avoid the uncertainty—and improve the sentence—by recasting it:

George Parkinson, Leila Fischer, and I signed the document.

The bottom line is to use myself only when you (the speaker or writer) are the object of the verb (I looked at myself in the mirror and have to admit I was smokin’) or as a way to emphasize that you were the sole actor (I put up the bookcases myself). Otherwise, dispense with it.

d. Share

Share is fine to signify “generously distribute,” as in He shared his cookies with the other students. But it is not fine as a psychobabbly replacement for say or discuss, as in He shared that he plans to retire next year or He shared some experiences from his tour of duty in Iraq. What to replace it with? Well, um, said and talked about.

e. Qualifiers and Intensifiers

I’d estimate that three-quarters of the time, you can improve a sentence by striking out the qualifiers (pretty, somewhat, a little, kind of, and the currently popular kinda, sort of, rather, arguably, slightly) and intensifiers (very, extremely, really, completely, totally, absolutely, unbelievably, remarkably, and, of course, literally).

Qualifiers make you come off as mealymouthed.

[Roy Halladay is arguably the best pitcher in the National League.]

What a weak statement! It’s tantamount to saying, “I can’t really back this up, but it’s possible that Roy Halladay is the best pitcher in the league, maybe.” Instead, pick a strong limb and take a stroll out on it:

Roy Halladay has the most wins, the most strikeouts, and the lowest ERA in the National League.

Roy Halladay was National League managers’ unanimous selection as pitcher of the year.

Or strongest of all:

Roy Halladay is the best pitcher in the National League.

Intensifiers, meanwhile, make you seem like the Boy Who Cried Wolf: This time they’re really, really coming. I mean it! Really! More often than not, a naked statement is stronger than one pumped up with intensifying steroids.

Transformers V is a very incredibly extremely unbelievably truly bad movie.

I don’t mean to suggest that adverbs—of which qualifiers and intensifiers are examples—can’t be used effectively and strategically. I just did so. The key is that effectively and strategically, in this context, are specific and precise, as opposed to adverbs meant to vaguely stoke the fire of your argument or cover your posterior.

f. Others to Avoid

· Particular is a currently popular four-syllable word that usually adds nothing to a thought except four syllables.

· That particular film is the most exciting science-fiction epic of the summer.

· Personally rarely if ever contributes anything of value, either.

· Personally, I believe U.S. tax policy is a disaster.

· (I believe goes as well: you wrote it, so of course you believe it.)

· Personal tends to be redundant, most notoriously in the expression personal friend (what other kinds of friends are there?), but also in:

· She led me to her personal office, which overlooks the museum’s gardens.

· Prefacing a statement with frankly, to tell the truth, I’m not going to lie, or some other such pledge of verity has the effect of making you seem like you’re not 100 percent sincere. So avoid them.

· Actually, a hugely popular word at the moment, is actually usually just filler.

· We actually met in summer camp.

· Aforementioned is an oddly legalistic word that has cropped up in some of my students’ writing over the last few years. Why, I don’t know, but I do know that it should go.

· With the publication of his aforementioned novel, The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen gained a great deal of notoriety.

· Even in quoted dialogue, stay away from dialect, or, in general, words that are spelled to indicate someone’s accent or pronunciation: kinda, gonna, the Southerner who laaahks something, the New Yawker who tawks like dis. A very little of this goes a very long way. Plus, sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. Sometimes a person will be described as saying, “I wazzunt there,” making me wonder, What, exactly, is the difference in pronunciation between wazzunt and wasn’t?