41 ms·

Replace the “very” in your sentence

193 points by no-reply 4y ago

trog 4y ago
This is missing an important factor for writing: context. There are many places where it's fine to wax lyrical and reach for the thesaurus. But if you're trying to write clearly and concisely then there is something to be said for simplicity.
- necovek 4y ago
  And audience! Eg. many in the tech world are not native English speakers, and this surely translates to most content to be published on the web. While I do appreciate learning a lot more of the literary English vocabulary, I prefer to do that through well known works of fiction, and only seldomly through texts I read for my work (eg. API documentation).
lanecwagner 4y ago
You should add a link to the famous scene about this in Dead Poets Society :)
fareesh 4y ago
According to the site very friendly = benevolent but that doesn't seem correct
baal80spam 4y ago
Very + healthy = instrumental What?
- metadat 4y ago
  What's not very healthy about an instrument? Think about it. Or very don't.
imwillofficial 4y ago
This website is the epitome of "do one thing and do it well" Bravo
- BarryMilo 4y ago
  I mean, the idea is interesting but I don't think it's done very... well.
  - jordanwallwork 4y ago
    I find it frustrating that you have to click to refresh the result. Why it doesnt't autorefresh after a short period makes no sense to me. I kept typing in words and thinking it was getting no results before realising I had to keep hitting the refresh button
    - thayne 4y ago
      it doesn't even refresh if you hit the "enter" key on your keyboard.
      - imwillofficial 4y ago
        Tough crowd hahahaha
- PennRobotics 4y ago
  It's not done very well, though
swayvil 4y ago
Very + excellent = not yet added Very + squamous = nya Very + blue = nya Lol
kens 4y ago
Very nice!
- coding123 4y ago
  Very charming!
  - daveslash 4y ago
    Very Funny you two.....
__derek__ 4y ago
I expected the site to literally lose the 'very' à la Hemingway's quip about ten-dollar words.
lxchase 4y ago
Looks like you can see what adjectives are in the database at this endpoint: https://api.airtable.com/v0/appHLMobCaTLuVQQy/Data?api_key=keyoFYTwLB0vomKLC https://api.airtable.com/v0/appHLMobCaTLuVQQy/Data?api_key=k...
smeagull 4y ago
Yeah, just use literally. It's literally a better word.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Blammar 4y ago
"very hard" -> formidable ? I don't agree because there are multiple interpretations. I would have liked multiple results, e.g., formidable, diamond-like, arduous, etc. In other words, don't use this site blindly.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  While I think this advise of yours should be clear to any user of a thesaurus or this site, I figured I'd share my default answer to a replacement for "very hard". "very hard" -> "difficult" Which is interesting because that's also an opinionated synonym for "hard", which without context has many definitions and interpretations. I'm also not even sure I think of "difficult" as being more hard than hard. I digress. Have a good evening.
- THENATHE 4y ago
  Formitible for difficult, and for something like hardness you could use “extremely”
- nomel 4y ago
  Another with multiple interpretations: very + gay = glamorous
- Crazyontap 4y ago
  > In other words, don't use this site blindly. Very true! For example: Very + Old = Ancient My granda is very old vs My grandma is ancient.
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    "Very old" is still rude. Seems roughly equivalent to me.
    - necovek 4y ago
      I am not yet "very old" (still not 40 :), but I've been called that by much younger folk, and I even joke about being "very old" in different social settings. It's obviously a relative term, so I would hope this isn't considered "rude" more generally. Even objectively, if life expectancy is 75 in a region, saying that someone 70+ is "old", or someone 85+ is "very old" sounds "correct" rather than rude. Is "very young" rude as well? Is it rude to say that someone is very short or very tall? I mean, that 6ft basketball player is very short. Yes, some will take offence at any objective statement of fact, and some of these are cultural (tall is good, short is not; young is good, short is not), but if your point is not to denigrate, then you are not rude imho.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
You can usually replace “very” with “fuckin’” and convey the same meaning.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mesarvagya 4y ago
  Fuckin true
  - metadat 4y ago
    Fuckin' A.
- tough 4y ago
  that's fuckin true
alibrarydweller 4y ago
"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. It also won’t do in your essays." -- The Dead Poets Society
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Great movie but not the best advice - "morose" doesn't even mean "very sad", it means ill-tempered/in a bad mood. I wouldn't even say there is one good word that means "very sad", but "morose" is definitely not it. The site in question came up with "inconsolable", but that's hardly appropriate if you're talking about "very sad news" (after a few attempts it come back with "somber" which at least sort of works in that case, though I'd still struggle to imagine myself telling a friend that their divorce was "sombre news").
  - laristine 4y ago
    I'd just go with heartbroken. Or if we're melodic, melancholy.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      Heartbroken is a particular type of sadness though, and again, doesn't apply to non-living occurrences (like "news" or "excuses" or "movies"). You'd probably have to use "pathetic" for "excuse", but a "pathetic movie" means something quite different...
  - djur 4y ago
    I think that's the point -- "very sad" is unpoetical because it doesn't convey anything more than "sad", which is itself a generic word. If you're writing poetry or fiction you want to be describing emotional states more interesting than "sad". The important corollary here is that not all language needs to be poetical. It's OK to use generic language in a lot of situations. Sometimes "I'm very sorry to hear that ____" is the tool for the social situation.
MisterSandman 4y ago
Outside of writing an English essay, I don't see why the use of very is looked down upon. "Very good" or "very smart" is fine and is common in everyday speech.
- nomel 4y ago
  Big words better. How else will you immediately judge someone's intellect?
  - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
    I think this sort of perspective is becoming a bit of a meme. Not every use of longer or uncommon words is for the sake of signalling intellect or w/e. This is just such a negative, juvenile perspective to take if you are deploying it often.
    - nomel 4y ago
      I was referring to the reverse perspective of perceiving intellect, rather than signaling intellect. It definitely happens both ways, but I think it's much more damaging to those who are perceived as being dumb, or whose ideas are not considered, because they're direct/plain. I see this fairly often in meetings. Someone says something very direct and plain, with the root of the problem laid out, but it fails some "complexity" threshold that makes the contrived, incorrect, but fancifully worded explanation get more traction, eventually looping back around to the simple explanation, with no real acknowledgment.
      - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
        Fair enough, and I actually relate and sympathize deeply with the example you gave.
      - Enginerrrd 4y ago
        I have seen almost this phenomenon: Some people are able to reduce a very complex problem and its solution down to something so simple that upon hearing it, everyone is immediately convinced of its truth. In fact, it is so self-evident and cannot be seen any other way, that you do not even feel the need to write it down. It may even be dismissed by some as being too trivial an observation to be of much help. ...And then, just a few days later, you find yourself staring at this very problem and all its immense complexity starts looking menacingly at you. Solutions? Ha! how could one possibly even hope to solve such a problem! Except, you recall that someone did. And yet, for the life of you, you wish you could remember what that solution was. Only then can you appreciate its elegance and the genius required to produce it.
protomyth 4y ago
very + unique = incomparable Nice, although a rather large group of TV viewers of The West Wing know that "unique means one of a kind, something can't be very unique"[0]. It still amazes me how some of the quotes from that show stick with me all these years later. 0) https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE?t=162 https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE?t=162 or the whole scene https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE
- TrevorJ 4y ago
  The dialogue in that show was fantastic. I'd love to see more shows with that particular sort of stylization. Sorkin is very unique.
  - pjot 4y ago
    Rewatching the show with subtitles on is a treat. I missed so many great lines the first time around.
- jaclaz 4y ago
  Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis
- NeoTar 4y ago
  How about something which is being assessed on multiple dimensions? A tee-shirt which is a distinct colour is unique. A tee-shirt which is a distinct colour, distinct fit, distinct size and has a distinct motif could perhaps be described as being 'very unique'.
- kylebyproxy 4y ago
  Adding a degree to uniqueness would describe the delta between it and its nearest relative. Hence, "very unique" would mean something closer to exceptional or "off-the-charts" and is a perfectly reasonable construction. I get the impression the anti-very crowd haven't actually thought too deeply on the matter
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thayne 4y ago
Easy way to stump it: Take the output and put it in the input. very + cute -> adorable. very adorable -> no result (may need to repeat for some words).
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  very very => no result very slightly => no result very not => no result ;(
  - version_five 4y ago
    Extremely
- Kiro 4y ago
  Why not just put in gibberish? Why bother using the output?
ruined 4y ago
ludicrous
deleted 4y ago
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tallytarik 4y ago
There's a good reason not to do this: your new fancy word is less likely to be understood by those with lower English literacy.
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  Very anti-intellectual.
  - tallytarik 4y ago
    Not Yet Added
DonHopkins 4y ago
Q: How many Northern Californians does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Hella!!! Q: How many Southern Californians does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Totally!!! There's a perceptual dialectological difference between "hella pregnant" (Northern California) and "totally pregnant" (Southern California). Hella Nor Cal or Totally So Cal? The Perceptual Dialectology of California http://eng.sagepub.com/content/35/4/325.abstract http://eng.sagepub.com/content/35/4/325.abstract https://web.archive.org/web/20141008111115/https://people.duke.edu/~eec10/hellanorcal.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20141008111115/https://people.du... This study provides the first detailed account of perceptual dialectology within California (as well as one of the first accounts of perceptual dialectology within any single state). Quantitative analysis of a map-labeling task carried out in Southern California reveals that California's most salient linguistic boundary is between the northern and southern regions of the state. Whereas studies of the perceptual dialectology of the United States as a whole have focused almost exclusively on regional dialect differences, respondents associated particular regions of California less with distinctive dialects than with differences in language (English versus Spanish), slang use, and social groups. The diverse sociolinguistic situation of California is reflected in the emphasis both on highly salient social groups thought to be stereotypical of California by residents and nonresidents alike (e.g., surfers) and on groups that, though prominent in the cultural landscape of the state, remain largely unrecognized by outsiders (e.g., hicks). [...] By far, the most frequently remarked-upon slang term in the map-labeling data was hella, accounting for 47.4 percent of the slang and other lexical labels. Hella is a slang term originating in Northern California and one that remains—aside from a few brief moments in the national spotlight due to its circulation in popular culture— largely restricted to that region (Bucholtz 2006). The term, which apparently lexicalized from (a) hell of (a), functions as both a quantifier (There were hella people there) and an intensifier (He runs hella fast). Four respondents also mentioned the slang term hecka, the G-rated equivalent of hella, but this term was not counted separately, because tokens of hecka always co-occurred with hella. For Southern Californians in particular, hella represents a crucial shibboleth separating the two major regions of the state. As shown in Figure 7, respondents tended to identify hella overwhelmingly as a Northern California slang term, and its appearance in other regions of the map drops dramatically from north to south. Thus Northern California was variously labeled the hellas, Land of the Hella’s, and Hella capital, and one respondent provided an isogloss designating “the ‘hella’ line.” (In the map data, the Central Coast around Santa Barbara seemed to be the dividing line between users and nonusers of hella, and the fact that the study was conducted in this region may have enhanced respondents’ focus on this particular issue.) [*10: The respondent’s confusion may also be due to the existence of the Crips, a notorious Los Angeles–based gang.] Hella users were also negatively evaluated by Southern Californians, and the term came in for a good deal of criticism, such as Hella is not a real word and [hecka is] probably the worst word ever. Isogloss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isogloss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isogloss Hella: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hella >Hella is an American slang term that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good" and was eventually added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002. It is possibly a contraction of the phrase "hell of a" or "hell of a lot [of]", in turn reduced to "hell of", though some scholars doubt this etymology since its grammatical usage does not align with those phrases. It often appears in place of the words "really", "a lot", "totally", "very", and in some cases, "yes". Whereas hell of a is generally used with a noun, according to linguist Pamela Munro, hella is primarily used to modify an adjective such as "good". Usage: Intensifier While intensifiers similar to hella exist in many colloquial varieties, hella is uncommonly flexible. It can be used to modify almost any part of speech, as shown below: That pizza was hella good: hella modifies the adjective good, where Standard American English would use very. Chris's pizza is hella better than anyone else's: hella modifies the adjective better, replacing much. I ate hella pizza: hella modifies the noun pizza, replacing a lot of. I hella bought four pizzas: hella modifies the verb to buy, replacing really or totally. I ran to the pizza joint hella quickly: hella modifies the adverb quickly, replacing very. Was the party fun last night? -- Hella!: hella is used on its own as a reply replacing very or totally. SI prefix An online petition begun in 2010 by Austin Sendek of Yreka, California seeks to establish "hella-" as the SI prefix for 1027. The prefix was recognized by Google in May 2010, and Wolfram Alpha in May 2011. In 2013, Andrew McAfee suggested the term hellabyte with this usage. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788993 Quixotic Californian crusade to officially recognize the hellabyte (theregister.com) https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/hellabyte_si_prefix/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/hellabyte_si_prefix/ The Californians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt-tG6ufH90 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt-tG6ufH90 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIklKPzND20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIklKPzND20
aeturnum 4y ago
On one hand, I think this kind of service can help people expand their vocabularies. On the other hand, there's a downside risk of replacing unimaginative writing with confused writing. "very + fragile -> feeble" is absolutely not a reliable translation[1]. The suggestions furnished by this service seem to generally 'work' in the sense that their possible meanings include "very + (category)," but without context you explode the set of messages you might communicate. Something that is fragile breaks easily. Something that is very fragile more so. Something that is feeble is lacking strength in general, it may give out at any time, it connotes a sense of being underweight, etc. All concepts that "very fragile" may be hoping to avoid invoking (however clumsily). Switching words switches meanings. [1] One might argue that 'fragile' does not need assistance at all in this case.
- djur 4y ago
  Regarding your [1], I think people reach for "very" for two different reasons: because they habitually "overseason" their sentences, adding intensifiers when the underlying language is already intense, or because they "underseason" them with limp adjectives that they're trying to pump up. The former people just need to build their confidence to drop "very". The latter need something like this site to help learn better adjectives.
  - aeturnum 4y ago
    I think my point is that these adjectives are not "better" - they are different. They mean different things, which you might also mean, but aren't good "drop in" replacements.
WaitWaitWha 4y ago
I ran a few words through and I am not willing to buy into the elimination of very. As noted (very or not) unique and incomparable are not the same. These words have nuanced differences. Every word I checked failed to provide the a proper equivalent. Context matters. very hard is not always demanding very clean =/= sparkling very old =/= ancient very dark =/= bleak
- function_seven 4y ago
  I wish this site would just list all the matches. If you keep clicking the button, it'll cycle (randomly!) through other substitutions. Sparkling was also immaculate. "Demanding" was also arduous, grueling, backbreaking, and formidable. Surely one of those would work for replacing "very hard" in a sentence? If not, then use your own imagination. "Complicated", "tedious", "rock hard", etc. Sometimes you have no choice but to throw a "very" in there. But if you're the type to lean on that word, then it's worthwhile to explore alternatives to avoid boring writing.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- djur 4y ago
  Is the site calling for the elimination of very or just suggesting that its overuse is a common problem for writers?
- sudobash1 4y ago
  I think that is actually the motivation to avoid very. It's completely true, and important to note that "very clean" =/= "sparkling". "Very" simply intensifies the word "clean". "Sparkling" doesn't simply mean intensely clean. Instead it means (in context) that it is so clean that light reflects off the surface. It has a richer meaning. On the other hand the way the tool presents is not the most helpful. A list would be much better. Perhaps I am trying to say that I have cleaned my carpet well. I would perhaps want "spotless" or "immaculate" rather than "very clean". But I certainly wouldn't want "sparkling." That suggestion is worthless for me, and I wouldn't want to have to keep clicking to find a relevant one. (Also, what if I meant "clean" as in "clean language". I don't think any of these suggestions would be relevant). So not my favorite tool (a thesaurus is much better), but a novel way of presenting the idea.
Imnimo 4y ago
You have to use a lot of judgment to pare these down, or you'll do more harm than good. "My car is very fast" -> "My car is breakneck" "It's going to be very cold tomorrow" -> "It's going to be Siberian tomorrow" "Those shoes are very expensive" -> "Those shoes are lavish"
- drpixie 4y ago
  Yes - the site (naturally) lacks context and the "translations" lack subtlety. But their the main point stands strongly ... take the time and devote the thought to choosing the correct word, and you'll produce better prose. Your text will be compact, precise, and more readable.
- bin_bash 4y ago
  doesn't "breakneck" have to be followed by a noun? e.g.: "breakneck pace" "breakneck speed" I do really like "It's going to be Siberian tomorrow" though, I might start using that one.
- jaza 4y ago
  "You mean we're all being sent to a gulag tomorrow? We'll be traversing a vast nothingness for months on end starting tomorrow? We'll be witnessing horrific environmental catastrophes that nobody knows about because they're too far from civilisation tomorrow?" "No. Sheesh, I just meant it's going to be very cold tomorrow!"
iLoveOncall 4y ago
"very rude" is turned into "ill-mannered". I would say the second one is softer (very soft actually) than "rude". For many of them, looking into multiple dictionaries it appears that they are synonymous of the word, rather than a stronger meaning.
- djur 4y ago
  The underlying writing issue here is that people will use "very" because the sentence feels too bare and simple without it, so they add "very" (or "really", "extremely", "truly", etc.) as a way to add interest and emphasis. A good example of this is that they have "incomparable" for "very unique". "Unique" and "incomparable" are synonymous, and "very" isn't necessary here at all, but the latter word may have more punch.
  - iLoveOncall 4y ago
    You may be right, but even as a non-native speaker I know to use very for emphasis only. The problem here is, as you can see from the fact that 100% of this thread is pointing out how badly that website works, it completely misses the mark on what it promises to do. If I wanted synonyms I would search for synonyms, if I wanted to emphasize something then I may want to use this website. Except it's just another synonyms website.
me_again 4y ago
Mark Twain supposedly said: Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'. Your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
- dang 4y ago
  https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/08/29/substitute-damn/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/08/29/substitute-damn/
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    I'll give William Allen White this - of the available text on [1], I could only find one use of "very"[2] as an emphasiser which makes him somewhat of an outlier in the prescriptivist world (following his own advice.) [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:William_Allen_White https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:William_Allen_White [2] "It is a very important factor that he must weigh soberly ..."
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Quotes don't need the potential author cited. Your advice works whoever told it, especially if you actually stand behind it and we'll take it as your word then.
  - account42 4y ago
    You don't think its relevant that advice about writing (purportedly) comes from an established writer? Not to mention that giving people credit is always laudable and should be done much more, not less.
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      Famous people say a lot of things and any random advice coming from an authoritative figure is not guaranted to be insightful. On top of that quotes are massively taken out of context and misattributed (this one probably is) That to me makes the whole quoting one liners format useless if the quote doesn't stand on its own(except when it's used ironically?)
crtified 4y ago
When emphasising language becomes habitual, it's intended impact may actually be lessened, by way of the "boy crying wolf" effect. That is, if everything is described as "very" and "really" and "actually", then those emphasisers no longer stand out. We start to ignore them, and the collective energy spent writing them is somewhat wasted. So I say: let a standalone word suffice, whenever possible. Save emphasis for appropriate moments.
- nicbou 4y ago
  > somewhat wasted
  - crtified 4y ago
    Sounds like a lost Cheech & Chong movie, right?
HL33tibCe7 4y ago
> very + difficult = strenuous It also offered up “laborious” and “challenging”. None convey the actual intended meaning
DonHopkins 4y ago
discovery - very = disco bravery - very = bra delivery - very = deli slavery - very = sla
- jaza 4y ago
  anniversary - very = annisar
powersnail 4y ago
I've seen such advice in many writing forums (other examples include don't use adverbs, don't use passive voice, etc.), and while it certainly pays to heed your choice of vocabulary, I'm not convinced that simply avoiding a fixed set of words or forms is good advice. Let alone replacing them with a fixed set of substitutes. Open a few good books and essays, and see if there are adverbs, "very", passive voices, or other bad forms. These are reputable works written by careful and capable writers, and enjoyed by many readers. If they are all deemed wrong in the eyes of such advice, it's the advice that's wrong. The valuable lesson is to actively think about the words you use, whether the text accurately convey what you mean, in the tone you desire, and is readable by your intended audience. I'd say a good pair of thesaurus and dictionary is much better than this website. At least you got multiple candidates, an explanation of each, and get to choose the most appropriate one.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  Blanket writing “avoid this” advice is almost always a list of code smells rather than errors. (“Substitute X for Y” advice, OTOH, is usually just wrong.)
- kelnos 4y ago
  I feel like a lot of people here are taking the point of this site much too literally. It's not saying "never ever ever ever use 'very'" or "if you want to use 'very', these are always the words you should use, no matter the context". It's a gentle nudge to remind us that often "very" is something that we reach for because we are too lazy to come up with a more expressive word. The words the site comes up with won't be appropriate for every context where you'd otherwise just prefix a "very". That's fine. It's a starting point, not the end-all be-all. And sometimes a "very" ends up being the way to go. That's also fine.
  - davidivadavid 4y ago
    Hacker News people being overly literal? Can't be. Jesting aside, yes, I would echo this and a couple other comments: the point is to nudge yourself to think a bit more about diction, and spotting the word "very" is an easy trigger to do that. Most replacements for very + something will be more precise, more evocative and just sound better. Of course, while more precise, they may be more inaccurate. You trade the shotgun of "very" for a sniper rifle, and that requires more careful aim.
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bambax 4y ago
Like many people, I tend to use "very" a lot. But there's often no need to find the appropriate superlative: the best cure is simply to delete it. It makes the sentence stronger by making the reader do half the work.
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ideaz 4y ago
Begs the question where should I use my "very" then?
- zamadatix 4y ago
  Only as an adjective "that was the very spot I left it". /s
whatisthiseven 4y ago
The website's design is great and simple with no explanation needed of how to use it. Would be snappier if it matched on words automatically so I wouldn't need to press enter. I noticed with my own writing the use of lazy structures, such as too many adverbs, very, "statement, but concession" sentences, or parenthesis for tangents. It isn't that these things are always bad. It was only when reading my older works I realized how much I was over-using these that it made my writing as a whole worse. My way of thinking about things, imagery for scenes, everything was getting impacted by the constant use of those sentence structures. Your thoughts can't help but be impacted if you're upping the "impact" of each emotion, phrase, description to be "very" or "lovely purple". Its OK for descriptions to stand on their own, and the same is true for simple words. A blue coat, the sad man, the lone frog in a pond in the rain. Write different; you'll be surprised how much you think different, too.
kyralis 4y ago
The first random one I got was simply incorrect: very + old = dilapidated And several others weren't much better: very + helpful = essential There are definitely words for which "very" is unnecessary and an alternate would be better, but in other cases the intensifier is actually the right choice. And if you do want to reduce your usage of "very", at least check a dictionary before you trust the site's output.
shannifin 4y ago
very + creepy = creepy lol
seadan83 4y ago
From the random picker: very + complex = your mom [Grin] Also: very + happy = jubilant very + jubilant = not yet added
redbar0n 4y ago
Don’t lose the «very» in your daily speak. Language should first and foremost be accessible to others, not exquisite. Unless you’re writing a novel, and unless the accuracy of the more elegant substitute word you’d use really matters.
shearnie 4y ago
very + very =
usertrjx 4y ago
Thank you much!
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xwowsersx 4y ago
I was going to say "very cool", but instead I'll say "ceaseless!" ...
m463 4y ago
following their advice, losethevery.com should redirect to losethe.com (give me a few minutes with a thesaurus and I'll come up with a better 302)
casey2 4y ago
Mystik
hardlianotion 4y ago
s/very/awesomely/g done.
nicbou 4y ago
This is good advice with one exception: if you write plain English for non-native speakers. I use "very" a lot, because it's a well-understood modifier. "very bad" is cleared than "appalling". It will be understood by all without needing a large vocabulary. An alternative is to use the "plus-" and "doubleplus-" prefixes.
- OJFord 4y ago
  > An alternative is to use the "plus-" and "doubleplus-" prefixes. I've never come across that, that sounds plus-awkward to me, but is it some sort of pan-language standard? And did I do it correctly?
  - mellavora 4y ago
    it is an Orwell reference. "double-plus good" was part of the Newspeak in his novel 1984 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/double-plus-good https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/double-plus-good
    - OJFord 4y ago
      Oh of course it is /facepalms/ - thank you, I'm feeling thoroughly unclever now.
eapriv 4y ago
When I open the page, it says "very + loading... = loading...", for a few moments because of course you need at least a second to load two more words from the server.
- yakshaving_jgt 4y ago
  But… but… it's the future!
dmichulke 4y ago
Obligatory reminder of the elative: In German: sehr schnell (very fast) -> blitzschnell (lightning fast) sehr gross (very big) -> riesengross (giant big) sehr reich (very rich) -> steinreich (stone rich) sehr arm (very poor) -> bettelarm (beggar poor) It's a bit easier vocab-wise for foreigners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elative_(gradation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elative_(gradation)
- jaza 4y ago
  "Lightning fast" is probably the most-recognised expression for "very fast" in English too. Not sure that there's an obvious candidate for "very big". And we have "stinking rich" and "dirt poor". A few more: "stone deaf", "stark naked", "blind drunk", "certifiably insane", "squeaky clean", "dog tired", "piping hot", "ice cold".
  - dmichulke 4y ago
    Is there a list of these word combinations? In German you have hundreds of those (incl. "eiskalt" - ice cold and "hundemüde" - dog tired) but I failed to find a list -.-
seanhunter 4y ago
very + very = Not Yet Added This makes me very sad. Very very sad in fact.
muhehe 4y ago
Tried a few word. Mostly "not yet added". The rest reminded me that episode of friends where Joey wrote letter with thesaurus to look smart...
hnbad 4y ago
I tried out "very tired" and got "exhausted", "spent" and "flagging". Obligatory caveat: I'm a second-language English speaker but I've been fluent for some twenty years and read and write English on a daily basis. I expected it to suggest "exhausted" but that just feels like a synonym (interestingly, "very exhausted" has no available suggestion). It also implies prior physical or mental effort, whereas "very tired" could also be the result of bad or insufficient sleep. Synonyms are rarely equivalent and this one just seems to suggest context that may be inappropriate. "Spent" seems like a more obvious example of this problem, putting the emphasis on depletion of energy rather than not having recovered in the first place. I'd also say it's less approachable as it's a colloquial metaphor. I know I had to do a double take when I came across this use as a learner. Either way, it's no more elegant than "very tired". "Flagging" throws me for a loop. I have no intutive sense what that word is even intended to mean in this context. The dictionary merely suggests it's a synonym for "exhausted" but provides no etymological information or context. I would guess it's metaphorical (in the sense of "giving up" by waving a flag of surrender, or signaling for help as if waving a flag) but I wouldn't have guessed the meaning from reading it without context. Especially as I've only ever seen it used as a transitive word, meaning to mark something for review or special treatment. Sure, avoid "very" if you want to write literature. But if you're writing for clarity rather than art, please stick to "very" if it avoids digging through a thesaurus just for the sake of it.
- jaclaz 4y ago
  I think there are also all grades of intensity (in a somewhat confusing order) via fairly/quite/rather/pretty.
darrenf 4y ago
In no circumstance ever will I substitute "very thirsty" with "cottonmouthed".
- aitchnyu 4y ago
  If you hit the button again you get "parched".
mottosso 4y ago
Very + Happy = Intoxicated. So true! :D
OJFord 4y ago
If you're an ESL speaker or something thinking this will be useful, I'd suggest caution (heh, changed that from 'very wary'). Many of the proposed alternatives I saw clicking through 'random' have a subtlety or specificity that the original 'very adj' doesn't - so it sounds like you mean something you might not (probably don't) if you say 'colossal' instead of 'tall' or 'emaciated' instead of 'skinny' for example. And 'pungent' instead of 'tasty' is just plain wrong.
- tchalla 4y ago
  > If you're an ESL speaker or something thinking this will be useful, I'd suggest caution (heh, changed that from 'very wary'). I will suggest one more thing. Define an acronym, abbreviation once before usage.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    I think it's widely known by English as a Second Language speakers, and it was only an example anyway, but sure, fair enough, thanks.
    - madeofpalk 4y ago
      I thought so (as an english-as-first-language), but I've met a bunch of people around the world who didn't know what ESL meant. I get the feeling the phrase is most known in American.
      - denton-scratch 4y ago
        ESL is standard in English english too.
        WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        Never heard it in England as a foreign student in a British university.
bfung 4y ago
Very nice. Erm… charming? My critical sidebar: a thesaurus-like app featured on product hunt? How about featuring a full thesaurus? The UI is nice~ For other grammar and alternative nits, I recommend https://hemingwayapp.com/ https://hemingwayapp.com/ . Ex: helps remove words like “just” and suggests better active tone English writing. I’d say combining the two apps would yield a really strong writing assistant.
qwery 4y ago
When you write something, what it is that you are doing, to put it very (clearly excessively) plainly, is selecting words that convey some meaning in some way that pleases you, the writer. Choose your words. You can try to choose words to please others if you like, but there's not much reason to expect success from such a strategy. Choose your words. Find your audience. This might be a useful way to discover words for some writers. It's unfortunate that it also supports and validates the meme of this sort of very simplistic, trivial, easily parroted, stick-in-head, catchphrase-based writing advice meme. The only way to write some sentences correctly is to use the word "only". And sometimes that that can't be removed, without changing the meaning. Or that's just the way you like it and that's that. It's like how premature optimisation is the root of all evil so you should never consider performance before the beta. Like adverbs, and starting sentences with a conjunction, or the inscrutable semicolon literal emdash all of these writing advice memes are very, very flawed. Proponents of such things might claim that "obviously" you're (only) meant to apply such an intensely absolute rule where appropriate. Take chillpills, grandparent. I just hope that it's quite invisible that I find this somewhat hilarious, but also quite miserable.
- foobarbecue 4y ago
  Nice to see "meme" used in the original sense.
DrNosferatu 4y ago
Very good!
angryGhost 4y ago
very + awesome = ??
skrebbel 4y ago
You can also just drop the “very”. There’s no need for a fancy word to replace the thing you’re very very about. For example, if you’re writing “very tall”, change it into “tall” and re-read the sentence. It’ll be better. I learned this by reading Scott Adams’ excellent 3-minute essay on writing: https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the_day_you_bec.html https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the...
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - skrebbel 4y ago
    I don't appreciate this personal attack. You know nothing about me, you know nothing about who and what I endorse. You simply conclude that because I refer to work by a person you dislike, I am also a person you dislike, and therefore I'm worthy of being yelled at. The world isn't this black and white. My linking to an article from 2007 does not mean I stand behind everything its author ever said. It's a good article. It does not suddenly become a bad article just because the author has gone batshit crazy a decade later. Please try to assume good faith.
- qwery 4y ago
  Very tall people are taller than tall people. (Of course) you can (always) (just) remove words from a sentence. The (very) idea that doing so will (always) result in a "better" sentence is nonsensical. The Empire State Building is a very tall building, but it is not the tallest. King Kong is a tall gorilla, and he is the tallest. Many examples are contrived. This example is contrived. I'm sorry, but I'm not very sorry.
  - skrebbel 4y ago
    Sure, I should've written "It'll often be better".
    - 4y ago
mellavora 4y ago
I simply wish people would stop using simply to describe how to do things, for example "To install this package, simply ..." very lazy
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mcv 4y ago
App doesn't work for me. I think generally it's a good idea to avoid excessive adverbs and adjectives, but sometimes I consciously choose to use not even just 'very', but 'very, very', in cases where the simplicity of language and the excessive repetition feels appropriate to the situation. Usually in very informal online speech. 'Very' serves an important purpose, but it's most effective at it when you restrict it to situations where you absolutely need it.
waterpowder 4y ago
very + beautiful = statuesque I'm not sure how helpful this is...
akerr 4y ago
‘Very’ comes from the Latin for true and could be replaced with ‘truly’. In that sense, it’s like ‘literally’ and other attempts to emphasise.
eimrine 4y ago
As a non-native English speaker, I know only one synonym of "very" - "so", as was popularized from Friends sitcom. For example: This building is very tall - this building is so tall.
sascha_sl 4y ago
Half of editing is deleting superfluous words. But also, sometimes adding a few "dead weight" phrases can make text feel easier to comprehend.
raydiatian 4y ago
You think Stevie Wonder is playing your games? “Exceptionally superstitious Writing on the wall” Very awful!
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reflexco 4y ago
very + good = sterling I'll stick to "very good", thanks.
omwow 4y ago
I think there's a lot you can criticize about this site. The suggestions are often questionable, and there's quite a few very common adjectives for which there are no suggestions at all ("delicious" for example yields "not yet added"). That said, the value of this site imho is it's simplicity, and that it focuses you to think about your use of the word "very", and how you can express ideas better.
BiteCode_dev 4y ago
I tried 5 words and all of them were not supported. I assume it provides support for simple words like hot or shy, but then it targets only beginners? I'm not very impressed. Sorry, I mean I'm underwhelmed.
KaiserPro 4y ago
As a native speaker, my reply is: no[1] Firstly this appears to be a way to boast about the size of your vocabulary. That's great, but, frankly you are walking into a bigarsed zone of unintended connotations. Its more than likely to do the exact opposite. Second, half of the suggestions are wrong. for example "very ashamed" is not the same as repentant. shame and regret are two similar things, but not the same. same with "very healthy" being a synonym for exuberant. Exuberant is full of energy, not feeling healthy. again linked but not the same. All of you who want to sound either more "well read", or more native, this website will lead you astray. All of you who are non-native, this website will confuse you and make you question your understanding. listen to bbc radio4/read the financial times, it will be better for you and there is wide range of styles to choose from (in the case of the BBC its free too) using 'very' is perfectly fine, just try to limit it's use to once a sentence at the very minimum(no you can't swap very minimum for "the least" maybe "at the very least"). "Very" adds emphasis in a clear and understandable way. in other words, it can make thing very readable, without very much effort. (yes I am taking the piss.) [1] apart from a few circumstances
- koolba 4y ago
  > using 'very' is perfectly fine, just try to limit it's use to once a sentence at the very minimum(no you can't swap very minimum for "the least" maybe "at the very least"). s/min/max/g I like to imagine it always being written in italics. If you don’t want it standing out and being very noticeable, then don’t use it at all.
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    I think the sentence can be read both ways (which is arguably worse): it's either "limit it to once a sentence, or limit it more" or "limit it to (once or more)". Which goes to show that to communicate clearly a well-thought-out sentence structure is more important than fretting over the exact word to use.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
alexmolas 4y ago
this is very interesting
Planktonne 4y ago
This is one of the most pernicious pieces of cargo-cult writing advice that gets smeared all over the internet. When writing, you should think carefully about your word choice, and adapt it for your audience, context, intended effect, etc. "Lose the very" is the exact opposite of thinking carefully. It ignores all the subtle shades of meaning that different words bring. Almost no words have direct swap-in synonyms. If you follow this advice, you end up with a mess of incoherent verbiage that (probably) says something very different to what was intended.
- zeroxp 4y ago
  When you say very different, you could have just said skittish. "It's skittish from what you intended". Isn't that much better?
  - johnpublic 4y ago
    actually, the website says "very different = distinct". So "it's distinct from what you intended." Which I actually prefer.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      Not the same. "Distinct from X" means that it can be distinguished from X; "very different from X" means that it's hard to mistake it for X.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
This seems to be a solution to a problem that does not exist, but it is very fun.
reportgunner 4y ago
very + pretentious = Not Yet Added
davidkunz 4y ago
In programming, mathematics and physics, our goal is to express our thoughts in a concise way without introducing too many different concepts. Applied to language, the word 'very' is great. It can be used in many occasions and is generally understood. What's wrong with that?
- jonnycomputer 4y ago
  It's common. Indeed so very common one might call it not just banal but characteristic of the hoi polloi, that is, uncouth. (:
nitin_flanker 4y ago
For extra impact. Pick the word from here and add very in front of it. Very + Cool = Dandy Use Very dandy for extra impact. XD
Tainnor 4y ago
Usage of "very" in the collected works of Shakespeare's: https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results.php https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results.... (some of these are false positives, e.g. "this very sword", where it's not used as an intensifier) I don't understand this quest that certain pencil-pushers seem to have with wanting to restrict the usage of certain words or even entire grammatical constructions (e.g. the crusade against the passive voice). Good writing means thinking about your words, your sentence structure, etc., yes - but not arbitrarily throwing out half of the language because of some weird dogmas.
- OJFord 4y ago
  I recall getting into trouble at school for (probably argumentatively & disruptively) pointing out occurrences of 'said' in published works, which is the word I remember being taught not to use more so than 'very'. They wanted every bit of dialogue to be broadcast or yelled or shouted or explained or cried and so on. If you actually read something like that it's bloody tedious, unless you're going for Homeric I think the better advice is to simply say 'said' more often!
  - Tainnor 4y ago
    Yeah, I was also taught the silly rule in school that you shouldn't say "said" all the time. I don't know where it comes from, but texts that use this rule extensively just read like what a schoolkid would write, not an actual author. The point of careful and nuanced words is that you should use them where it matters. In many cases, especially in prose, it doesn't and "said" is more than enough. (oh and also, despite its flowery language at times, Homeric language is full of repetitive turns of phrases too)
    - OJFord 4y ago
      > despite its flowery language at times, Homeric language is full of repetitive turns of phrases too Absolutely, as I understand it that's believed to be a direct result of it being passed down orally, a technique for memorisation. I just meant that the dialogue is generally colourfully exclaimed, never merely 'said'; though plenty of those individual words even (for describing how it's.. said) are repeated endlessly. Though, I've only read one English translation, so I did hesitate to draw the comparison. I assume no respectable translator would start 'flowering up' a text like that if it did hypothetically say the equivalent of 'said' all the time though.
tsimionescu 4y ago
I find it doubleplus disappointing that no one is pointing out some Orwellian alternatives.
jmbwell 4y ago
It playfully encourages people to think and write more lyrically. Perhaps the mathematical notation, also apparently intended to be metaphorical, implies a literal variable substitution objective where there is none. Obviously, words have nuance of meaning dependent on multiple factors. The point, it seems to me, is just to try to write more creatively, even in work and business. Poetry can fill even the tiniest spaces. There is always a little room for it.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  I believe the site would be great, if below the suggested word it showed you some of the nuance of the suggested substitution. Almost every substitution will change the meaning or connotation, which is arguably the paramount reason for switching from the "very adjective" version. Reminding us of this would elevate the site and would make it more honest.
amadeuspagel 4y ago
First example: Very dangerous => Treacherous Definition of treacherous: guilty of or involving betrayal or deception. Of course things can be dangerous and even very dangerous without betrayal or deception. Climbing Mount Everest is very dangerous. But is it treacherous?
- ekidd 4y ago
  You could certainly say "The path along the ridge was treacherous." But this suggests that any footstep might betray you. But there are many other words that could replace "very dangerous" in certain contexts: perilous, deadly, precarious, etc. Each has specific connotations, or only makes sense in specific contexts. Can it be worth replacing "very X" with a more specific word? Perhaps. Mere mechanical search and replace won't work. As Mark Twain wrote: > The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. 'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. "Very" is a safe choice, and perfectly fine in many sorts of quick, casual writing. Trying to find the perfect word can occasionally be treacherous[1] for non-native speakers. They might choose a word with a unexpected meaning. [1] OK, I did that deliberately. I'm very sorry, but not actually repentant.
peatfreak 4y ago
It's playful and interesting, a bit like a thesaurus but not nearly as good. Take it with a grain of salt. I would like to see something similar for semicolons.
jaza 4y ago
The English language has 100,000+ words. Most native speakers know less than 10% of them. You'll probably be less, not more, easily understood, if every time your instinct is to use "very", you replace it with a hyper-specific adjective or adverb. In most cases, all you'll achieve is snobbery. TL;DR: keep calm and very on.
kensai 4y ago
very + sweet = saccharine? From me it's a no. But some results are pretty good.
Finnucane 4y ago
That’s very useful.
GistNoesis 4y ago
Why do we still have to fill the database ? This used to be a task for word vectors woman - man + king = queen But thinking more about it, isn't it a task for GPT-3 now ? You write your input prompt with some random known example and you ask the last one for completion. "very + energetic = spirited \n very + nervous = shrinking \n very + arrogant = brazen \n very + upset = fuming \n very + wet = " It would be fun to be able to apply multiple times very to a word to see what you get, and maybe trace a Dynkin diagram of the English language.
torginus 4y ago
I feel like this is is high school lit level advice. I've heard that in the US, part of the grade on essays is calculated algorithmically, based on the rarity of words one uses. My teachers also tried to get me to avoid word repetition in my writing, such as the word 'very' 'say' etc. but never explained to me why it is a bad thing. My personal theory is the usage synonyms is important to make sentences look 'dissimilar' as possible. This aids in reading comprehension, as samey looking sentences can lead the readers to lose track of their progress, similarly how one can lose their way physically without the aid of distinctive landmarks.
deworms 4y ago
Nice, very useful
denton-scratch 4y ago
It's just wrong. "Very" + "outstanding" is not the same as "distinguished". "Very" + "entertaining" is not the same as "absorbing". I've only tried it a few times, but not once has it come up with a proposal that is correct.
- kylebyproxy 4y ago
  The very notion of intentionally handicapping one's own vocabulary is just plain bizarre
PeterStuer 4y ago
Easy, just replace every 'very' with 'mega' or 'super'. Done already across the industry :D.
loughnane 4y ago
As others have pointed out the fancier word is not always a drop in for the “very x”. But that isn’t how to use these tools. These tools are great for _reminding you that these other words exist._ I bet most of our writing is riddled with lazy idioms because we’re doing the hard work of turning thoughts into words. That’s hard enough without raising the bar even higher. Once the first pass is written down however it’s valuable to do a quick skim to see “is there anything I can do to make this more readable? To make it so that my idea gets implanted in the readers brain?” If you write a paragraph and say very three—or even two— times, a tool that can quickly give you alternatives will make your writing more readable.
jonnycomputer 4y ago
Someone has a pet peeve. lol
greenthrow 4y ago
There's a lot more words than "very" which are popular verbal ticks in the modern world. "Really" is another one. But instead of worrying about one that a rando on the internet made a site about; record yourself speaking and watch yourself back consciously. Learn to be an editor for yourself. For most people, there's more important ways they could improve their written and spoken communication than worrying about extraneous words.
somecommit 4y ago
Very useful
motive 4y ago
I agree with a lot of the other comments regarding the accuracy of the substitutions suggested here. Having said that, I do think 'very' is overused in daily conversational English. I've found myself replacing it with 'quite' more often now, just for personal taste.
sunflowerdeath 4y ago
No, I'd rather spend my time doing something useful than looking for replacements for words.
greenhearth 4y ago
It's a funny joke and gets your mind going, but in the field, "very" doesn't get used that much to warrant wholesale replacing. It's not very prevalent, actually
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
This web site is strange. English is notable for having a ton of verbs. If you listen to a native speaker with a rich vocabulary, you will not hear a lot of rare adjectives, you will hear stronger verbs.
effnorwood 4y ago
code_runner 4y ago
Always great to see how useless the internet can be when we try really hard. While it’s fine that the annoying student who always corrected your grammar in school has enough extra cash to host this site, it’s a shame they still haven’t applied themselves to anything useful or interesting. Something that HAS been very helpful to me (very surprisingly to me, who was very skeptical)… outlook’s “make it more concise” hints. Makes my emails waaay more concise and direct… I hate coming across as cocky or confident but they hit the nail on the head for me. Very helpful.
foobarbecue 4y ago
In elementary school, I was exhorted to avoid "flabby words" when possible. i.e. words that lengthen without adding meaning. "Very" is often such a word, but not always.
sys32768 4y ago
I find https://www.wordhippo.com/ https://www.wordhippo.com/ a much superior vocabulary discovery tool. It has myriad (very many) recommendations for "very late" whereas losetheevery.com has none.
tpoacher 4y ago
[Le me, attempting to replace 'very + x' with single posh word] - "Are you Dr Watson?" - "The very same" - "Ah. Don't you mean ... the indistinguishable?" - "... no." [Fail]
tinglymintyfrsh 4y ago
Adjectives are marketing for nouns. Adverbs are commercials for verbs. "Literally", "actually", "truly", "unquestionably", "honestly", "totally", "so", ... are useless. Damn ad's.
nitwit005 4y ago
It's extremely odd how people focus on very when there are a staggeringly large number of other emphasis words. It's a supremely rediculous bias.
fargle 4y ago
very well

193 points by no-reply 4y ago

trog 4y ago

This is missing an important factor for writing: context. There are many places where it's fine to wax lyrical and reach for the thesaurus. But if you're trying to write clearly and concisely then there is something to be said for simplicity.

necovek 4y ago
And audience! Eg. many in the tech world are not native English speakers, and this surely translates to most content to be published on the web. While I do appreciate learning a lot more of the literary English vocabulary, I prefer to do that through well known works of fiction, and only seldomly through texts I read for my work (eg. API documentation).

lanecwagner 4y ago

You should add a link to the famous scene about this in Dead Poets Society :)

fareesh 4y ago

According to the site very friendly = benevolent but that doesn't seem correct

baal80spam 4y ago

Very + healthy = instrumental What?

metadat 4y ago
What's not very healthy about an instrument? Think about it. Or very don't.

imwillofficial 4y ago

This website is the epitome of "do one thing and do it well" Bravo

BarryMilo 4y ago
I mean, the idea is interesting but I don't think it's done very... well.
- jordanwallwork 4y ago
  I find it frustrating that you have to click to refresh the result. Why it doesnt't autorefresh after a short period makes no sense to me. I kept typing in words and thinking it was getting no results before realising I had to keep hitting the refresh button
  - thayne 4y ago
    it doesn't even refresh if you hit the "enter" key on your keyboard.
    - imwillofficial 4y ago
      Tough crowd hahahaha
PennRobotics 4y ago
It's not done very well, though

swayvil 4y ago

Very + excellent = not yet added Very + squamous = nya Very + blue = nya Lol

kens 4y ago

Very nice!

coding123 4y ago
Very charming!
- daveslash 4y ago
  Very Funny you two.....

__derek__ 4y ago

I expected the site to literally lose the 'very' à la Hemingway's quip about ten-dollar words.

lxchase 4y ago

Looks like you can see what adjectives are in the database at this endpoint: https://api.airtable.com/v0/appHLMobCaTLuVQQy/Data?api_key=keyoFYTwLB0vomKLC https://api.airtable.com/v0/appHLMobCaTLuVQQy/Data?api_key=k...

smeagull 4y ago

Yeah, just use literally. It's literally a better word.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Blammar 4y ago

"very hard" -> formidable ? I don't agree because there are multiple interpretations. I would have liked multiple results, e.g., formidable, diamond-like, arduous, etc. In other words, don't use this site blindly.

DiggyJohnson 4y ago
While I think this advise of yours should be clear to any user of a thesaurus or this site, I figured I'd share my default answer to a replacement for "very hard". "very hard" -> "difficult" Which is interesting because that's also an opinionated synonym for "hard", which without context has many definitions and interpretations. I'm also not even sure I think of "difficult" as being more hard than hard. I digress. Have a good evening.
THENATHE 4y ago
Formitible for difficult, and for something like hardness you could use “extremely”
nomel 4y ago
Another with multiple interpretations: very + gay = glamorous
Crazyontap 4y ago
> In other words, don't use this site blindly. Very true! For example: Very + Old = Ancient My granda is very old vs My grandma is ancient.
- chitowneats 4y ago
  "Very old" is still rude. Seems roughly equivalent to me.
  - necovek 4y ago
    I am not yet "very old" (still not 40 :), but I've been called that by much younger folk, and I even joke about being "very old" in different social settings. It's obviously a relative term, so I would hope this isn't considered "rude" more generally. Even objectively, if life expectancy is 75 in a region, saying that someone 70+ is "old", or someone 85+ is "very old" sounds "correct" rather than rude. Is "very young" rude as well? Is it rude to say that someone is very short or very tall? I mean, that 6ft basketball player is very short. Yes, some will take offence at any objective statement of fact, and some of these are cultural (tall is good, short is not; young is good, short is not), but if your point is not to denigrate, then you are not rude imho.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago

You can usually replace “very” with “fuckin’” and convey the same meaning.

deleted 4y ago
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mesarvagya 4y ago
Fuckin true
- metadat 4y ago
  Fuckin' A.
tough 4y ago
that's fuckin true

alibrarydweller 4y ago

"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. It also won’t do in your essays." -- The Dead Poets Society

wizofaus 4y ago
Great movie but not the best advice - "morose" doesn't even mean "very sad", it means ill-tempered/in a bad mood. I wouldn't even say there is one good word that means "very sad", but "morose" is definitely not it. The site in question came up with "inconsolable", but that's hardly appropriate if you're talking about "very sad news" (after a few attempts it come back with "somber" which at least sort of works in that case, though I'd still struggle to imagine myself telling a friend that their divorce was "sombre news").
- laristine 4y ago
  I'd just go with heartbroken. Or if we're melodic, melancholy.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    Heartbroken is a particular type of sadness though, and again, doesn't apply to non-living occurrences (like "news" or "excuses" or "movies"). You'd probably have to use "pathetic" for "excuse", but a "pathetic movie" means something quite different...
- djur 4y ago
  I think that's the point -- "very sad" is unpoetical because it doesn't convey anything more than "sad", which is itself a generic word. If you're writing poetry or fiction you want to be describing emotional states more interesting than "sad". The important corollary here is that not all language needs to be poetical. It's OK to use generic language in a lot of situations. Sometimes "I'm very sorry to hear that ____" is the tool for the social situation.

MisterSandman 4y ago

Outside of writing an English essay, I don't see why the use of very is looked down upon. "Very good" or "very smart" is fine and is common in everyday speech.

nomel 4y ago
Big words better. How else will you immediately judge someone's intellect?
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  I think this sort of perspective is becoming a bit of a meme. Not every use of longer or uncommon words is for the sake of signalling intellect or w/e. This is just such a negative, juvenile perspective to take if you are deploying it often.
  - nomel 4y ago
    I was referring to the reverse perspective of perceiving intellect, rather than signaling intellect. It definitely happens both ways, but I think it's much more damaging to those who are perceived as being dumb, or whose ideas are not considered, because they're direct/plain. I see this fairly often in meetings. Someone says something very direct and plain, with the root of the problem laid out, but it fails some "complexity" threshold that makes the contrived, incorrect, but fancifully worded explanation get more traction, eventually looping back around to the simple explanation, with no real acknowledgment.
    - DiggyJohnson 4y ago
      Fair enough, and I actually relate and sympathize deeply with the example you gave.
    - Enginerrrd 4y ago
      I have seen almost this phenomenon: Some people are able to reduce a very complex problem and its solution down to something so simple that upon hearing it, everyone is immediately convinced of its truth. In fact, it is so self-evident and cannot be seen any other way, that you do not even feel the need to write it down. It may even be dismissed by some as being too trivial an observation to be of much help. ...And then, just a few days later, you find yourself staring at this very problem and all its immense complexity starts looking menacingly at you. Solutions? Ha! how could one possibly even hope to solve such a problem! Except, you recall that someone did. And yet, for the life of you, you wish you could remember what that solution was. Only then can you appreciate its elegance and the genius required to produce it.

protomyth 4y ago

very + unique = incomparable Nice, although a rather large group of TV viewers of The West Wing know that "unique means one of a kind, something can't be very unique"[0]. It still amazes me how some of the quotes from that show stick with me all these years later. 0) https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE?t=162 https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE?t=162 or the whole scene https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE

TrevorJ 4y ago
The dialogue in that show was fantastic. I'd love to see more shows with that particular sort of stylization. Sorkin is very unique.
- pjot 4y ago
  Rewatching the show with subtitles on is a treat. I missed so many great lines the first time around.
jaclaz 4y ago
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis
NeoTar 4y ago
How about something which is being assessed on multiple dimensions? A tee-shirt which is a distinct colour is unique. A tee-shirt which is a distinct colour, distinct fit, distinct size and has a distinct motif could perhaps be described as being 'very unique'.
kylebyproxy 4y ago
Adding a degree to uniqueness would describe the delta between it and its nearest relative. Hence, "very unique" would mean something closer to exceptional or "off-the-charts" and is a perfectly reasonable construction. I get the impression the anti-very crowd haven't actually thought too deeply on the matter

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[deleted]

thayne 4y ago

Easy way to stump it: Take the output and put it in the input. very + cute -> adorable. very adorable -> no result (may need to repeat for some words).

DonHopkins 4y ago
very very => no result very slightly => no result very not => no result ;(
- version_five 4y ago
  Extremely
Kiro 4y ago
Why not just put in gibberish? Why bother using the output?

ruined 4y ago

ludicrous

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tallytarik 4y ago

There's a good reason not to do this: your new fancy word is less likely to be understood by those with lower English literacy.

DonHopkins 4y ago
Very anti-intellectual.
- tallytarik 4y ago
  Not Yet Added

DonHopkins 4y ago

Q: How many Northern Californians does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Hella!!! Q: How many Southern Californians does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Totally!!! There's a perceptual dialectological difference between "hella pregnant" (Northern California) and "totally pregnant" (Southern California). Hella Nor Cal or Totally So Cal? The Perceptual Dialectology of California http://eng.sagepub.com/content/35/4/325.abstract http://eng.sagepub.com/content/35/4/325.abstract https://web.archive.org/web/20141008111115/https://people.duke.edu/~eec10/hellanorcal.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20141008111115/https://people.du... This study provides the first detailed account of perceptual dialectology within California (as well as one of the first accounts of perceptual dialectology within any single state). Quantitative analysis of a map-labeling task carried out in Southern California reveals that California's most salient linguistic boundary is between the northern and southern regions of the state. Whereas studies of the perceptual dialectology of the United States as a whole have focused almost exclusively on regional dialect differences, respondents associated particular regions of California less with distinctive dialects than with differences in language (English versus Spanish), slang use, and social groups. The diverse sociolinguistic situation of California is reflected in the emphasis both on highly salient social groups thought to be stereotypical of California by residents and nonresidents alike (e.g., surfers) and on groups that, though prominent in the cultural landscape of the state, remain largely unrecognized by outsiders (e.g., hicks). [...] By far, the most frequently remarked-upon slang term in the map-labeling data was hella, accounting for 47.4 percent of the slang and other lexical labels. Hella is a slang term originating in Northern California and one that remains—aside from a few brief moments in the national spotlight due to its circulation in popular culture— largely restricted to that region (Bucholtz 2006). The term, which apparently lexicalized from (a) hell of (a), functions as both a quantifier (There were hella people there) and an intensifier (He runs hella fast). Four respondents also mentioned the slang term hecka, the G-rated equivalent of hella, but this term was not counted separately, because tokens of hecka always co-occurred with hella. For Southern Californians in particular, hella represents a crucial shibboleth separating the two major regions of the state. As shown in Figure 7, respondents tended to identify hella overwhelmingly as a Northern California slang term, and its appearance in other regions of the map drops dramatically from north to south. Thus Northern California was variously labeled the hellas, Land of the Hella’s, and Hella capital, and one respondent provided an isogloss designating “the ‘hella’ line.” (In the map data, the Central Coast around Santa Barbara seemed to be the dividing line between users and nonusers of hella, and the fact that the study was conducted in this region may have enhanced respondents’ focus on this particular issue.) [*10: The respondent’s confusion may also be due to the existence of the Crips, a notorious Los Angeles–based gang.] Hella users were also negatively evaluated by Southern Californians, and the term came in for a good deal of criticism, such as Hella is not a real word and [hecka is] probably the worst word ever. Isogloss: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isogloss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isogloss Hella: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hella >Hella is an American slang term that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good" and was eventually added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002. It is possibly a contraction of the phrase "hell of a" or "hell of a lot [of]", in turn reduced to "hell of", though some scholars doubt this etymology since its grammatical usage does not align with those phrases. It often appears in place of the words "really", "a lot", "totally", "very", and in some cases, "yes". Whereas hell of a is generally used with a noun, according to linguist Pamela Munro, hella is primarily used to modify an adjective such as "good". Usage: Intensifier While intensifiers similar to hella exist in many colloquial varieties, hella is uncommonly flexible. It can be used to modify almost any part of speech, as shown below: That pizza was hella good: hella modifies the adjective good, where Standard American English would use very. Chris's pizza is hella better than anyone else's: hella modifies the adjective better, replacing much. I ate hella pizza: hella modifies the noun pizza, replacing a lot of. I hella bought four pizzas: hella modifies the verb to buy, replacing really or totally. I ran to the pizza joint hella quickly: hella modifies the adverb quickly, replacing very. Was the party fun last night? -- Hella!: hella is used on its own as a reply replacing very or totally. SI prefix An online petition begun in 2010 by Austin Sendek of Yreka, California seeks to establish "hella-" as the SI prefix for 1027. The prefix was recognized by Google in May 2010, and Wolfram Alpha in May 2011. In 2013, Andrew McAfee suggested the term hellabyte with this usage. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788993 Quixotic Californian crusade to officially recognize the hellabyte (theregister.com) https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/hellabyte_si_prefix/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/hellabyte_si_prefix/ The Californians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt-tG6ufH90 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt-tG6ufH90 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIklKPzND20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIklKPzND20

aeturnum 4y ago

On one hand, I think this kind of service can help people expand their vocabularies. On the other hand, there's a downside risk of replacing unimaginative writing with confused writing. "very + fragile -> feeble" is absolutely not a reliable translation[1]. The suggestions furnished by this service seem to generally 'work' in the sense that their possible meanings include "very + (category)," but without context you explode the set of messages you might communicate. Something that is fragile breaks easily. Something that is very fragile more so. Something that is feeble is lacking strength in general, it may give out at any time, it connotes a sense of being underweight, etc. All concepts that "very fragile" may be hoping to avoid invoking (however clumsily). Switching words switches meanings. [1] One might argue that 'fragile' does not need assistance at all in this case.

djur 4y ago
Regarding your [1], I think people reach for "very" for two different reasons: because they habitually "overseason" their sentences, adding intensifiers when the underlying language is already intense, or because they "underseason" them with limp adjectives that they're trying to pump up. The former people just need to build their confidence to drop "very". The latter need something like this site to help learn better adjectives.
- aeturnum 4y ago
  I think my point is that these adjectives are not "better" - they are different. They mean different things, which you might also mean, but aren't good "drop in" replacements.

WaitWaitWha 4y ago

I ran a few words through and I am not willing to buy into the elimination of very. As noted (very or not) unique and incomparable are not the same. These words have nuanced differences. Every word I checked failed to provide the a proper equivalent. Context matters. very hard is not always demanding very clean =/= sparkling very old =/= ancient very dark =/= bleak

function_seven 4y ago
I wish this site would just list all the matches. If you keep clicking the button, it'll cycle (randomly!) through other substitutions. Sparkling was also immaculate. "Demanding" was also arduous, grueling, backbreaking, and formidable. Surely one of those would work for replacing "very hard" in a sentence? If not, then use your own imagination. "Complicated", "tedious", "rock hard", etc. Sometimes you have no choice but to throw a "very" in there. But if you're the type to lean on that word, then it's worthwhile to explore alternatives to avoid boring writing.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
djur 4y ago
Is the site calling for the elimination of very or just suggesting that its overuse is a common problem for writers?
sudobash1 4y ago
I think that is actually the motivation to avoid very. It's completely true, and important to note that "very clean" =/= "sparkling". "Very" simply intensifies the word "clean". "Sparkling" doesn't simply mean intensely clean. Instead it means (in context) that it is so clean that light reflects off the surface. It has a richer meaning. On the other hand the way the tool presents is not the most helpful. A list would be much better. Perhaps I am trying to say that I have cleaned my carpet well. I would perhaps want "spotless" or "immaculate" rather than "very clean". But I certainly wouldn't want "sparkling." That suggestion is worthless for me, and I wouldn't want to have to keep clicking to find a relevant one. (Also, what if I meant "clean" as in "clean language". I don't think any of these suggestions would be relevant). So not my favorite tool (a thesaurus is much better), but a novel way of presenting the idea.

Imnimo 4y ago

You have to use a lot of judgment to pare these down, or you'll do more harm than good. "My car is very fast" -> "My car is breakneck" "It's going to be very cold tomorrow" -> "It's going to be Siberian tomorrow" "Those shoes are very expensive" -> "Those shoes are lavish"

drpixie 4y ago
Yes - the site (naturally) lacks context and the "translations" lack subtlety. But their the main point stands strongly ... take the time and devote the thought to choosing the correct word, and you'll produce better prose. Your text will be compact, precise, and more readable.
bin_bash 4y ago
doesn't "breakneck" have to be followed by a noun? e.g.: "breakneck pace" "breakneck speed" I do really like "It's going to be Siberian tomorrow" though, I might start using that one.
jaza 4y ago
"You mean we're all being sent to a gulag tomorrow? We'll be traversing a vast nothingness for months on end starting tomorrow? We'll be witnessing horrific environmental catastrophes that nobody knows about because they're too far from civilisation tomorrow?" "No. Sheesh, I just meant it's going to be very cold tomorrow!"

iLoveOncall 4y ago

"very rude" is turned into "ill-mannered". I would say the second one is softer (very soft actually) than "rude". For many of them, looking into multiple dictionaries it appears that they are synonymous of the word, rather than a stronger meaning.

djur 4y ago
The underlying writing issue here is that people will use "very" because the sentence feels too bare and simple without it, so they add "very" (or "really", "extremely", "truly", etc.) as a way to add interest and emphasis. A good example of this is that they have "incomparable" for "very unique". "Unique" and "incomparable" are synonymous, and "very" isn't necessary here at all, but the latter word may have more punch.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  You may be right, but even as a non-native speaker I know to use very for emphasis only. The problem here is, as you can see from the fact that 100% of this thread is pointing out how badly that website works, it completely misses the mark on what it promises to do. If I wanted synonyms I would search for synonyms, if I wanted to emphasize something then I may want to use this website. Except it's just another synonyms website.

me_again 4y ago

Mark Twain supposedly said: Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'. Your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

dang 4y ago
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/08/29/substitute-damn/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/08/29/substitute-damn/
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  I'll give William Allen White this - of the available text on [1], I could only find one use of "very"[2] as an emphasiser which makes him somewhat of an outlier in the prescriptivist world (following his own advice.) [1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:William_Allen_White https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:William_Allen_White [2] "It is a very important factor that he must weigh soberly ..."
makeitdouble 4y ago
Quotes don't need the potential author cited. Your advice works whoever told it, especially if you actually stand behind it and we'll take it as your word then.
- account42 4y ago
  You don't think its relevant that advice about writing (purportedly) comes from an established writer? Not to mention that giving people credit is always laudable and should be done much more, not less.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    Famous people say a lot of things and any random advice coming from an authoritative figure is not guaranted to be insightful. On top of that quotes are massively taken out of context and misattributed (this one probably is) That to me makes the whole quoting one liners format useless if the quote doesn't stand on its own(except when it's used ironically?)

crtified 4y ago

When emphasising language becomes habitual, it's intended impact may actually be lessened, by way of the "boy crying wolf" effect. That is, if everything is described as "very" and "really" and "actually", then those emphasisers no longer stand out. We start to ignore them, and the collective energy spent writing them is somewhat wasted. So I say: let a standalone word suffice, whenever possible. Save emphasis for appropriate moments.

nicbou 4y ago
> somewhat wasted
- crtified 4y ago
  Sounds like a lost Cheech & Chong movie, right?

HL33tibCe7 4y ago

> very + difficult = strenuous It also offered up “laborious” and “challenging”. None convey the actual intended meaning

DonHopkins 4y ago

discovery - very = disco bravery - very = bra delivery - very = deli slavery - very = sla

jaza 4y ago
anniversary - very = annisar

powersnail 4y ago

I've seen such advice in many writing forums (other examples include don't use adverbs, don't use passive voice, etc.), and while it certainly pays to heed your choice of vocabulary, I'm not convinced that simply avoiding a fixed set of words or forms is good advice. Let alone replacing them with a fixed set of substitutes. Open a few good books and essays, and see if there are adverbs, "very", passive voices, or other bad forms. These are reputable works written by careful and capable writers, and enjoyed by many readers. If they are all deemed wrong in the eyes of such advice, it's the advice that's wrong. The valuable lesson is to actively think about the words you use, whether the text accurately convey what you mean, in the tone you desire, and is readable by your intended audience. I'd say a good pair of thesaurus and dictionary is much better than this website. At least you got multiple candidates, an explanation of each, and get to choose the most appropriate one.

dragonwriter 4y ago
Blanket writing “avoid this” advice is almost always a list of code smells rather than errors. (“Substitute X for Y” advice, OTOH, is usually just wrong.)
kelnos 4y ago
I feel like a lot of people here are taking the point of this site much too literally. It's not saying "never ever ever ever use 'very'" or "if you want to use 'very', these are always the words you should use, no matter the context". It's a gentle nudge to remind us that often "very" is something that we reach for because we are too lazy to come up with a more expressive word. The words the site comes up with won't be appropriate for every context where you'd otherwise just prefix a "very". That's fine. It's a starting point, not the end-all be-all. And sometimes a "very" ends up being the way to go. That's also fine.
- davidivadavid 4y ago
  Hacker News people being overly literal? Can't be. Jesting aside, yes, I would echo this and a couple other comments: the point is to nudge yourself to think a bit more about diction, and spotting the word "very" is an easy trigger to do that. Most replacements for very + something will be more precise, more evocative and just sound better. Of course, while more precise, they may be more inaccurate. You trade the shotgun of "very" for a sniper rifle, and that requires more careful aim.

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bambax 4y ago

Like many people, I tend to use "very" a lot. But there's often no need to find the appropriate superlative: the best cure is simply to delete it. It makes the sentence stronger by making the reader do half the work.

deleted 4y ago

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ideaz 4y ago

Begs the question where should I use my "very" then?

zamadatix 4y ago
Only as an adjective "that was the very spot I left it". /s

whatisthiseven 4y ago

The website's design is great and simple with no explanation needed of how to use it. Would be snappier if it matched on words automatically so I wouldn't need to press enter. I noticed with my own writing the use of lazy structures, such as too many adverbs, very, "statement, but concession" sentences, or parenthesis for tangents. It isn't that these things are always bad. It was only when reading my older works I realized how much I was over-using these that it made my writing as a whole worse. My way of thinking about things, imagery for scenes, everything was getting impacted by the constant use of those sentence structures. Your thoughts can't help but be impacted if you're upping the "impact" of each emotion, phrase, description to be "very" or "lovely purple". Its OK for descriptions to stand on their own, and the same is true for simple words. A blue coat, the sad man, the lone frog in a pond in the rain. Write different; you'll be surprised how much you think different, too.

kyralis 4y ago

The first random one I got was simply incorrect: very + old = dilapidated And several others weren't much better: very + helpful = essential There are definitely words for which "very" is unnecessary and an alternate would be better, but in other cases the intensifier is actually the right choice. And if you do want to reduce your usage of "very", at least check a dictionary before you trust the site's output.

shannifin 4y ago

very + creepy = creepy lol

seadan83 4y ago

From the random picker: very + complex = your mom [Grin] Also: very + happy = jubilant very + jubilant = not yet added

redbar0n 4y ago

Don’t lose the «very» in your daily speak. Language should first and foremost be accessible to others, not exquisite. Unless you’re writing a novel, and unless the accuracy of the more elegant substitute word you’d use really matters.

shearnie 4y ago

very + very =

usertrjx 4y ago

Thank you much!

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xwowsersx 4y ago

I was going to say "very cool", but instead I'll say "ceaseless!" ...

m463 4y ago

following their advice, losethevery.com should redirect to losethe.com (give me a few minutes with a thesaurus and I'll come up with a better 302)

casey2 4y ago

Mystik

hardlianotion 4y ago

s/very/awesomely/g done.

nicbou 4y ago

This is good advice with one exception: if you write plain English for non-native speakers. I use "very" a lot, because it's a well-understood modifier. "very bad" is cleared than "appalling". It will be understood by all without needing a large vocabulary. An alternative is to use the "plus-" and "doubleplus-" prefixes.

OJFord 4y ago
> An alternative is to use the "plus-" and "doubleplus-" prefixes. I've never come across that, that sounds plus-awkward to me, but is it some sort of pan-language standard? And did I do it correctly?
- mellavora 4y ago
  it is an Orwell reference. "double-plus good" was part of the Newspeak in his novel 1984 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/double-plus-good https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/double-plus-good
  - OJFord 4y ago
    Oh of course it is /facepalms/ - thank you, I'm feeling thoroughly unclever now.

eapriv 4y ago

When I open the page, it says "very + loading... = loading...", for a few moments because of course you need at least a second to load two more words from the server.

yakshaving_jgt 4y ago
But… but… it's the future!

dmichulke 4y ago

Obligatory reminder of the elative: In German: sehr schnell (very fast) -> blitzschnell (lightning fast) sehr gross (very big) -> riesengross (giant big) sehr reich (very rich) -> steinreich (stone rich) sehr arm (very poor) -> bettelarm (beggar poor) It's a bit easier vocab-wise for foreigners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elative_(gradation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elative_(gradation)

jaza 4y ago
"Lightning fast" is probably the most-recognised expression for "very fast" in English too. Not sure that there's an obvious candidate for "very big". And we have "stinking rich" and "dirt poor". A few more: "stone deaf", "stark naked", "blind drunk", "certifiably insane", "squeaky clean", "dog tired", "piping hot", "ice cold".
- dmichulke 4y ago
  Is there a list of these word combinations? In German you have hundreds of those (incl. "eiskalt" - ice cold and "hundemüde" - dog tired) but I failed to find a list -.-

seanhunter 4y ago

very + very = Not Yet Added This makes me very sad. Very very sad in fact.

muhehe 4y ago

Tried a few word. Mostly "not yet added". The rest reminded me that episode of friends where Joey wrote letter with thesaurus to look smart...

hnbad 4y ago

I tried out "very tired" and got "exhausted", "spent" and "flagging". Obligatory caveat: I'm a second-language English speaker but I've been fluent for some twenty years and read and write English on a daily basis. I expected it to suggest "exhausted" but that just feels like a synonym (interestingly, "very exhausted" has no available suggestion). It also implies prior physical or mental effort, whereas "very tired" could also be the result of bad or insufficient sleep. Synonyms are rarely equivalent and this one just seems to suggest context that may be inappropriate. "Spent" seems like a more obvious example of this problem, putting the emphasis on depletion of energy rather than not having recovered in the first place. I'd also say it's less approachable as it's a colloquial metaphor. I know I had to do a double take when I came across this use as a learner. Either way, it's no more elegant than "very tired". "Flagging" throws me for a loop. I have no intutive sense what that word is even intended to mean in this context. The dictionary merely suggests it's a synonym for "exhausted" but provides no etymological information or context. I would guess it's metaphorical (in the sense of "giving up" by waving a flag of surrender, or signaling for help as if waving a flag) but I wouldn't have guessed the meaning from reading it without context. Especially as I've only ever seen it used as a transitive word, meaning to mark something for review or special treatment. Sure, avoid "very" if you want to write literature. But if you're writing for clarity rather than art, please stick to "very" if it avoids digging through a thesaurus just for the sake of it.

jaclaz 4y ago
I think there are also all grades of intensity (in a somewhat confusing order) via fairly/quite/rather/pretty.

darrenf 4y ago

In no circumstance ever will I substitute "very thirsty" with "cottonmouthed".

aitchnyu 4y ago
If you hit the button again you get "parched".

mottosso 4y ago

Very + Happy = Intoxicated. So true! :D

OJFord 4y ago

If you're an ESL speaker or something thinking this will be useful, I'd suggest caution (heh, changed that from 'very wary'). Many of the proposed alternatives I saw clicking through 'random' have a subtlety or specificity that the original 'very adj' doesn't - so it sounds like you mean something you might not (probably don't) if you say 'colossal' instead of 'tall' or 'emaciated' instead of 'skinny' for example. And 'pungent' instead of 'tasty' is just plain wrong.

tchalla 4y ago
> If you're an ESL speaker or something thinking this will be useful, I'd suggest caution (heh, changed that from 'very wary'). I will suggest one more thing. Define an acronym, abbreviation once before usage.
- OJFord 4y ago
  I think it's widely known by English as a Second Language speakers, and it was only an example anyway, but sure, fair enough, thanks.
  - madeofpalk 4y ago
    I thought so (as an english-as-first-language), but I've met a bunch of people around the world who didn't know what ESL meant. I get the feeling the phrase is most known in American.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      ESL is standard in English english too.
      - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
        Never heard it in England as a foreign student in a British university.

bfung 4y ago

Very nice. Erm… charming? My critical sidebar: a thesaurus-like app featured on product hunt? How about featuring a full thesaurus? The UI is nice~ For other grammar and alternative nits, I recommend https://hemingwayapp.com/ https://hemingwayapp.com/ . Ex: helps remove words like “just” and suggests better active tone English writing. I’d say combining the two apps would yield a really strong writing assistant.

qwery 4y ago

When you write something, what it is that you are doing, to put it very (clearly excessively) plainly, is selecting words that convey some meaning in some way that pleases you, the writer. Choose your words. You can try to choose words to please others if you like, but there's not much reason to expect success from such a strategy. Choose your words. Find your audience. This might be a useful way to discover words for some writers. It's unfortunate that it also supports and validates the meme of this sort of very simplistic, trivial, easily parroted, stick-in-head, catchphrase-based writing advice meme. The only way to write some sentences correctly is to use the word "only". And sometimes that that can't be removed, without changing the meaning. Or that's just the way you like it and that's that. It's like how premature optimisation is the root of all evil so you should never consider performance before the beta. Like adverbs, and starting sentences with a conjunction, or the inscrutable semicolon literal emdash all of these writing advice memes are very, very flawed. Proponents of such things might claim that "obviously" you're (only) meant to apply such an intensely absolute rule where appropriate. Take chillpills, grandparent. I just hope that it's quite invisible that I find this somewhat hilarious, but also quite miserable.

foobarbecue 4y ago
Nice to see "meme" used in the original sense.

DrNosferatu 4y ago

Very good!

angryGhost 4y ago

very + awesome = ??

skrebbel 4y ago

You can also just drop the “very”. There’s no need for a fancy word to replace the thing you’re very very about. For example, if you’re writing “very tall”, change it into “tall” and re-read the sentence. It’ll be better. I learned this by reading Scott Adams’ excellent 3-minute essay on writing: https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the_day_you_bec.html https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the...

DonHopkins 4y ago
[flagged]
- skrebbel 4y ago
  I don't appreciate this personal attack. You know nothing about me, you know nothing about who and what I endorse. You simply conclude that because I refer to work by a person you dislike, I am also a person you dislike, and therefore I'm worthy of being yelled at. The world isn't this black and white. My linking to an article from 2007 does not mean I stand behind everything its author ever said. It's a good article. It does not suddenly become a bad article just because the author has gone batshit crazy a decade later. Please try to assume good faith.
qwery 4y ago
Very tall people are taller than tall people. (Of course) you can (always) (just) remove words from a sentence. The (very) idea that doing so will (always) result in a "better" sentence is nonsensical. The Empire State Building is a very tall building, but it is not the tallest. King Kong is a tall gorilla, and he is the tallest. Many examples are contrived. This example is contrived. I'm sorry, but I'm not very sorry.
- skrebbel 4y ago
  Sure, I should've written "It'll often be better".
  - 4y ago

mellavora 4y ago

I simply wish people would stop using simply to describe how to do things, for example "To install this package, simply ..." very lazy

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mcv 4y ago

App doesn't work for me. I think generally it's a good idea to avoid excessive adverbs and adjectives, but sometimes I consciously choose to use not even just 'very', but 'very, very', in cases where the simplicity of language and the excessive repetition feels appropriate to the situation. Usually in very informal online speech. 'Very' serves an important purpose, but it's most effective at it when you restrict it to situations where you absolutely need it.

waterpowder 4y ago

very + beautiful = statuesque I'm not sure how helpful this is...

akerr 4y ago

‘Very’ comes from the Latin for true and could be replaced with ‘truly’. In that sense, it’s like ‘literally’ and other attempts to emphasise.

eimrine 4y ago

As a non-native English speaker, I know only one synonym of "very" - "so", as was popularized from Friends sitcom. For example: This building is very tall - this building is so tall.

sascha_sl 4y ago

Half of editing is deleting superfluous words. But also, sometimes adding a few "dead weight" phrases can make text feel easier to comprehend.

raydiatian 4y ago

You think Stevie Wonder is playing your games? “Exceptionally superstitious Writing on the wall” Very awful!

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reflexco 4y ago

very + good = sterling I'll stick to "very good", thanks.

omwow 4y ago

I think there's a lot you can criticize about this site. The suggestions are often questionable, and there's quite a few very common adjectives for which there are no suggestions at all ("delicious" for example yields "not yet added"). That said, the value of this site imho is it's simplicity, and that it focuses you to think about your use of the word "very", and how you can express ideas better.

BiteCode_dev 4y ago

I tried 5 words and all of them were not supported. I assume it provides support for simple words like hot or shy, but then it targets only beginners? I'm not very impressed. Sorry, I mean I'm underwhelmed.

KaiserPro 4y ago

As a native speaker, my reply is: no[1] Firstly this appears to be a way to boast about the size of your vocabulary. That's great, but, frankly you are walking into a bigarsed zone of unintended connotations. Its more than likely to do the exact opposite. Second, half of the suggestions are wrong. for example "very ashamed" is not the same as repentant. shame and regret are two similar things, but not the same. same with "very healthy" being a synonym for exuberant. Exuberant is full of energy, not feeling healthy. again linked but not the same. All of you who want to sound either more "well read", or more native, this website will lead you astray. All of you who are non-native, this website will confuse you and make you question your understanding. listen to bbc radio4/read the financial times, it will be better for you and there is wide range of styles to choose from (in the case of the BBC its free too) using 'very' is perfectly fine, just try to limit it's use to once a sentence at the very minimum(no you can't swap very minimum for "the least" maybe "at the very least"). "Very" adds emphasis in a clear and understandable way. in other words, it can make thing very readable, without very much effort. (yes I am taking the piss.) [1] apart from a few circumstances

koolba 4y ago
> using 'very' is perfectly fine, just try to limit it's use to once a sentence at the very minimum(no you can't swap very minimum for "the least" maybe "at the very least"). s/min/max/g I like to imagine it always being written in italics. If you don’t want it standing out and being very noticeable, then don’t use it at all.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  I think the sentence can be read both ways (which is arguably worse): it's either "limit it to once a sentence, or limit it more" or "limit it to (once or more)". Which goes to show that to communicate clearly a well-thought-out sentence structure is more important than fretting over the exact word to use.
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alexmolas 4y ago

this is very interesting

Planktonne 4y ago

This is one of the most pernicious pieces of cargo-cult writing advice that gets smeared all over the internet. When writing, you should think carefully about your word choice, and adapt it for your audience, context, intended effect, etc. "Lose the very" is the exact opposite of thinking carefully. It ignores all the subtle shades of meaning that different words bring. Almost no words have direct swap-in synonyms. If you follow this advice, you end up with a mess of incoherent verbiage that (probably) says something very different to what was intended.

zeroxp 4y ago
When you say very different, you could have just said skittish. "It's skittish from what you intended". Isn't that much better?
- johnpublic 4y ago
  actually, the website says "very different = distinct". So "it's distinct from what you intended." Which I actually prefer.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    Not the same. "Distinct from X" means that it can be distinguished from X; "very different from X" means that it's hard to mistake it for X.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

This seems to be a solution to a problem that does not exist, but it is very fun.

reportgunner 4y ago

very + pretentious = Not Yet Added

davidkunz 4y ago

In programming, mathematics and physics, our goal is to express our thoughts in a concise way without introducing too many different concepts. Applied to language, the word 'very' is great. It can be used in many occasions and is generally understood. What's wrong with that?

jonnycomputer 4y ago
It's common. Indeed so very common one might call it not just banal but characteristic of the hoi polloi, that is, uncouth. (:

nitin_flanker 4y ago

For extra impact. Pick the word from here and add very in front of it. Very + Cool = Dandy Use Very dandy for extra impact. XD

Tainnor 4y ago

Usage of "very" in the collected works of Shakespeare's: https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results.php https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results.... (some of these are false positives, e.g. "this very sword", where it's not used as an intensifier) I don't understand this quest that certain pencil-pushers seem to have with wanting to restrict the usage of certain words or even entire grammatical constructions (e.g. the crusade against the passive voice). Good writing means thinking about your words, your sentence structure, etc., yes - but not arbitrarily throwing out half of the language because of some weird dogmas.

OJFord 4y ago
I recall getting into trouble at school for (probably argumentatively & disruptively) pointing out occurrences of 'said' in published works, which is the word I remember being taught not to use more so than 'very'. They wanted every bit of dialogue to be broadcast or yelled or shouted or explained or cried and so on. If you actually read something like that it's bloody tedious, unless you're going for Homeric I think the better advice is to simply say 'said' more often!
- Tainnor 4y ago
  Yeah, I was also taught the silly rule in school that you shouldn't say "said" all the time. I don't know where it comes from, but texts that use this rule extensively just read like what a schoolkid would write, not an actual author. The point of careful and nuanced words is that you should use them where it matters. In many cases, especially in prose, it doesn't and "said" is more than enough. (oh and also, despite its flowery language at times, Homeric language is full of repetitive turns of phrases too)
  - OJFord 4y ago
    > despite its flowery language at times, Homeric language is full of repetitive turns of phrases too Absolutely, as I understand it that's believed to be a direct result of it being passed down orally, a technique for memorisation. I just meant that the dialogue is generally colourfully exclaimed, never merely 'said'; though plenty of those individual words even (for describing how it's.. said) are repeated endlessly. Though, I've only read one English translation, so I did hesitate to draw the comparison. I assume no respectable translator would start 'flowering up' a text like that if it did hypothetically say the equivalent of 'said' all the time though.

tsimionescu 4y ago

I find it doubleplus disappointing that no one is pointing out some Orwellian alternatives.

jmbwell 4y ago

It playfully encourages people to think and write more lyrically. Perhaps the mathematical notation, also apparently intended to be metaphorical, implies a literal variable substitution objective where there is none. Obviously, words have nuance of meaning dependent on multiple factors. The point, it seems to me, is just to try to write more creatively, even in work and business. Poetry can fill even the tiniest spaces. There is always a little room for it.

wongarsu 4y ago
I believe the site would be great, if below the suggested word it showed you some of the nuance of the suggested substitution. Almost every substitution will change the meaning or connotation, which is arguably the paramount reason for switching from the "very adjective" version. Reminding us of this would elevate the site and would make it more honest.

amadeuspagel 4y ago

First example: Very dangerous => Treacherous Definition of treacherous: guilty of or involving betrayal or deception. Of course things can be dangerous and even very dangerous without betrayal or deception. Climbing Mount Everest is very dangerous. But is it treacherous?

ekidd 4y ago
You could certainly say "The path along the ridge was treacherous." But this suggests that any footstep might betray you. But there are many other words that could replace "very dangerous" in certain contexts: perilous, deadly, precarious, etc. Each has specific connotations, or only makes sense in specific contexts. Can it be worth replacing "very X" with a more specific word? Perhaps. Mere mechanical search and replace won't work. As Mark Twain wrote: > The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. 'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. "Very" is a safe choice, and perfectly fine in many sorts of quick, casual writing. Trying to find the perfect word can occasionally be treacherous[1] for non-native speakers. They might choose a word with a unexpected meaning. [1] OK, I did that deliberately. I'm very sorry, but not actually repentant.

peatfreak 4y ago

It's playful and interesting, a bit like a thesaurus but not nearly as good. Take it with a grain of salt. I would like to see something similar for semicolons.

jaza 4y ago

The English language has 100,000+ words. Most native speakers know less than 10% of them. You'll probably be less, not more, easily understood, if every time your instinct is to use "very", you replace it with a hyper-specific adjective or adverb. In most cases, all you'll achieve is snobbery. TL;DR: keep calm and very on.

kensai 4y ago

very + sweet = saccharine? From me it's a no. But some results are pretty good.

Finnucane 4y ago

That’s very useful.

GistNoesis 4y ago

Why do we still have to fill the database ? This used to be a task for word vectors woman - man + king = queen But thinking more about it, isn't it a task for GPT-3 now ? You write your input prompt with some random known example and you ask the last one for completion. "very + energetic = spirited \n very + nervous = shrinking \n very + arrogant = brazen \n very + upset = fuming \n very + wet = " It would be fun to be able to apply multiple times very to a word to see what you get, and maybe trace a Dynkin diagram of the English language.

torginus 4y ago

I feel like this is is high school lit level advice. I've heard that in the US, part of the grade on essays is calculated algorithmically, based on the rarity of words one uses. My teachers also tried to get me to avoid word repetition in my writing, such as the word 'very' 'say' etc. but never explained to me why it is a bad thing. My personal theory is the usage synonyms is important to make sentences look 'dissimilar' as possible. This aids in reading comprehension, as samey looking sentences can lead the readers to lose track of their progress, similarly how one can lose their way physically without the aid of distinctive landmarks.

deworms 4y ago

Nice, very useful

denton-scratch 4y ago

It's just wrong. "Very" + "outstanding" is not the same as "distinguished". "Very" + "entertaining" is not the same as "absorbing". I've only tried it a few times, but not once has it come up with a proposal that is correct.

kylebyproxy 4y ago
The very notion of intentionally handicapping one's own vocabulary is just plain bizarre

PeterStuer 4y ago

Easy, just replace every 'very' with 'mega' or 'super'. Done already across the industry :D.

loughnane 4y ago

As others have pointed out the fancier word is not always a drop in for the “very x”. But that isn’t how to use these tools. These tools are great for _reminding you that these other words exist._ I bet most of our writing is riddled with lazy idioms because we’re doing the hard work of turning thoughts into words. That’s hard enough without raising the bar even higher. Once the first pass is written down however it’s valuable to do a quick skim to see “is there anything I can do to make this more readable? To make it so that my idea gets implanted in the readers brain?” If you write a paragraph and say very three—or even two— times, a tool that can quickly give you alternatives will make your writing more readable.

jonnycomputer 4y ago

Someone has a pet peeve. lol

greenthrow 4y ago

There's a lot more words than "very" which are popular verbal ticks in the modern world. "Really" is another one. But instead of worrying about one that a rando on the internet made a site about; record yourself speaking and watch yourself back consciously. Learn to be an editor for yourself. For most people, there's more important ways they could improve their written and spoken communication than worrying about extraneous words.

somecommit 4y ago

Very useful

motive 4y ago

I agree with a lot of the other comments regarding the accuracy of the substitutions suggested here. Having said that, I do think 'very' is overused in daily conversational English. I've found myself replacing it with 'quite' more often now, just for personal taste.

sunflowerdeath 4y ago

No, I'd rather spend my time doing something useful than looking for replacements for words.

greenhearth 4y ago

It's a funny joke and gets your mind going, but in the field, "very" doesn't get used that much to warrant wholesale replacing. It's not very prevalent, actually

WastingMyTime89 4y ago

This web site is strange. English is notable for having a ton of verbs. If you listen to a native speaker with a rich vocabulary, you will not hear a lot of rare adjectives, you will hear stronger verbs.

effnorwood 4y ago

code_runner 4y ago

Always great to see how useless the internet can be when we try really hard. While it’s fine that the annoying student who always corrected your grammar in school has enough extra cash to host this site, it’s a shame they still haven’t applied themselves to anything useful or interesting. Something that HAS been very helpful to me (very surprisingly to me, who was very skeptical)… outlook’s “make it more concise” hints. Makes my emails waaay more concise and direct… I hate coming across as cocky or confident but they hit the nail on the head for me. Very helpful.

foobarbecue 4y ago

In elementary school, I was exhorted to avoid "flabby words" when possible. i.e. words that lengthen without adding meaning. "Very" is often such a word, but not always.

sys32768 4y ago

I find https://www.wordhippo.com/ https://www.wordhippo.com/ a much superior vocabulary discovery tool. It has myriad (very many) recommendations for "very late" whereas losetheevery.com has none.

tpoacher 4y ago

[Le me, attempting to replace 'very + x' with single posh word] - "Are you Dr Watson?" - "The very same" - "Ah. Don't you mean ... the indistinguishable?" - "... no." [Fail]

tinglymintyfrsh 4y ago

Adjectives are marketing for nouns. Adverbs are commercials for verbs. "Literally", "actually", "truly", "unquestionably", "honestly", "totally", "so", ... are useless. Damn ad's.

nitwit005 4y ago

It's extremely odd how people focus on very when there are a staggeringly large number of other emphasis words. It's a supremely rediculous bias.

fargle 4y ago

very well