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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
by 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.
- makeitdouble 4y agoAn issue I have with this approach is the lack of gradation. A very clean carpet might still not be spotless nor immaculate. You'd have to adjust and go for "almost spotless", but then is it still better than using "very" ? Forcing people to think long and hard about the exact word they want to use is beneficial, but I'd expect we'd still fall back to modulators like "very" in most cases (the same way I'm cushioning this statement to avoid going to an extreme)
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago> Forcing people to think long and hard about the exact word they want to use is beneficial ...except in the cases where it's not. If you want to communicate efficiently, you need to speak plainly: you will be understood and the whole process will go smoothly as you won't need to lose time to replace each 'very' in your sentence with something that might or might not fit.