6 ms·
Eliminate superfluous words
by zwischenzug 6y ago
Eliminate superfluous words
- llarsson 6y agoThat was my thought, too, but the "every" makes it a stronger mandate than what both of us came up with. Without the "every", you could let some questionably superfluous words stay.
- zeckalpha 6y agoThen you’ve not eliminated
- dwaltrip 6y agoYou have, just not all.
- dwaltrip 6y agoSeconding this. The “every” is necessary.
- Avshalom 6y agoWell if we want a strong mandate we can go with Eliminate!
- dctoedt 6y ago> Eliminate! Which — without context — could be misinterpreted, say as a certain biological function. The goal is not brevity bragging rights, à la code golf: The goal is to serve the reader, and sometimes a few extra words, well-chosen and -placed, can help. (Also: A few extra words can serve as cheap insurance against ambiguity, which can be critical in contract drafting.)
- Avshalom 6y agoSure but taking advantage of context is how most brevity works. For instance which words are superfluous is context dependent. Also "eliminate every superfluous word" is good advice primarily in context of the question "how do I improve my writing", it's terrible advice for "how do I stop pooping so much".
- CharlesW 6y ago"Every" is superfluous. If there's even one superfluous word, you haven't eliminated superfluous words.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- graderjs 6y agoCut spare words
- kibwen 6y agoBe laconic.
- throwaway823882 6y agoSummarize.
- maest 6y agoAs Shakespeare once said "keeping things short is what makes things wise".
- ChainOfFools 6y ago"poetry is compression" - William Goldman easily the most profound three words I had ever encountered as an aspirational teenage writer, though it would be several decades before my understanding of "compression" developed sufficiently to fully recognize and appreciate the depth of that insight. One wonders what Goldman would have thought of Claude Shannon.