Forget These Words

Early in my adult life I wanted to be a police officer, so much so that I was one, for a brief period of twenty months. I didn’t like the job, and it didn’t like me, so we called a truce and I walked away. Someday I will talk about the experience in more depth.

Something I learned as police officer, however, has remained with me as a writer. My training officer drilled into me that I should remove the words seems or sort of or kind of from my vocabulary, and especially my writing.

“When you write a report,” he told me, “the suspect never ‘seems to be’ under the influence. He either is or he isn’t. Anything in a report that conveys any uncertainty is fodder for a defense attorney in court.” Any report you write as a police officer can land you in the witness box, and you will look dumb—or worse—if you can’t defend it.

This was reinforced at a writing seminar I was in at the Southern California Writers’ Conference last month. Writer and editor Jean Jenson told the group that there were three words we should eliminate from our writing: just, really and very. They’re fall into the category of seems and sort of—qualifying words that are not necessary.

Even when dealing with fiction and abstract concepts, I favor exactness as much as possible. I also believe that you should learn the rules so you can break them properly (thank you, Dali Lama). Sometimes I need to use those words, but it had better be a good reason.

What are the words you avoid?

Comments

[EbookEdit]

Good advice there. Those are all empty phrases.
My pet peeve is 'said'. It's overused and is sometimes the only word authors employ to denote dialogue. I put together an ebook of alternatives and came up with more than 2000! We need to be more adventurous and stop saying 'said' so much.

[Rosanne Dingli]

If you have any writing or editing experience at all, you will soon learn that advice of this sort is a touch outdated and not a little misguided. You can tell that what you are working on is the manuscript of a novice if they never use 'said'.

You can find the word 'said' in all the one thousand books that make up the canon of literature in English. So what can we learn from that?

You will also find really, very and just.

The only valid observation one can make is that all these words are used well, in a timely way, with a great deal of confidence, and when no other word will do.

When used advisedly, ALL words are valuable to writers.

[Eve Gaal]

Thanks Rosanne for clarifying something that I was thinking too!

-The Desert Rocks

[David Severy]

RE sort of, kind of ~ I agree, not often good to use.

But seems? What do you use instead? Appears? I write a lot of opinion. Thing do seem to me often and a lot!

RE Just, really and very, over use yes, but they can be used.

We ought to avoid sounding like 14 year olds. Better to sound like 5 year olds.

Matthew 18:3
And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.