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'Vague Qualifiers' - A Commentary

By Paula LaRocque, KERA 90.1 commentator

Dallas, TX – Theodore Roosevelt once said that one of our national weaknesses was a tendency to use what he called 'weasel words.' He said that when a weasel gets an egg, it sucks out all the meat, leaving only the shell.

In the same way, 'weasel words' drain the meaning from the message.

In writing, if not in speech, some leading "weasel words" are vague qualifiers. By vague qualifiers, I mean words that are meant to strengthen, such as 'very,' 'extremely,' 'totally,' 'entirely,' 'utterly,' 'really,' or 'completely.' Or words that diminish, such as 'somewhat,' 'rather,' 'slightly,' 'quite,' and so forth.

Such qualifiers are valuable to us in speech. They help us get closer to our meaning when we can't think of the perfect word. If we can't instantly call to mind the right word, we fortify the almost-right word with an intensifier, or we reduce it with a word such as 'rather.'

When we're writing, however, we can review and revise. The most interesting and paradoxical thing about those qualifiers intended to strengthen is that they actually weaken. The much-overused word 'very,' for example, can drain the life from robust expression. Intended to fortify, it merely flattens.

Sometimes vague qualifiers aren't buttressing weak words or curbing strong ones - the words they modify are perfectly fine standing alone. So cutting qualifiers creates a curious and welcome effect: The word left standing becomes stronger and more assertive in its solitude. Here's an example, from an educator:

"We're trying very, very hard to improve our students' basic language skills, which are admittedly very low. It has been very challenging indeed, but we are very pleased to report some very small improvement after months of very intense effort."

You think I'm exaggerating!

Now listen to the same statement without that say-nothing stinker 'very':

"We're trying hard to improve our students' admittedly low language skills. It has been challenging, but we're pleased to report some improvement after months of intense effort."

All we did to strengthen and clarify that passage was remove the 'very's.' All the other words are the same, and they take on new vigor when they're allowed to stand alone.

Some words are so independent that qualifying them is not just unnecessary, it's wrong. For example, we don't say 'slightly dead' or 'somewhat alive' because you can't qualify words that have no degrees of meaning. Yet, we might hear 'quite' or 'very' 'unique.' 'Unique' means 'one of a kind,' which can't be qualified - how can something be a lot or a little 'one of a kind?' Qualifying the unqualifiable yields such oddities as 'rather pregnant' or 'slightly malignant.' And sometimes it also creates redundancies - such as 'completely destroyed' or 'totally demolished.'

A good test for whether we have the right word is whether it can stand alone. If we describe something as 'rather' beautiful, then that something is probably less than beautiful. Maybe it's just 'attractive.' If we describe something as 'very' beautiful, then it's probably more than beautiful - maybe it's 'exquisite.'

In short, it's a shame to sacrifice English's huge lexicon of more than 600,000 words. We should kick the qualifier habit. 'Very' soon - as in 'very, very' soon. As in 'immediately.'

 

Paula LaRocque is a former writing coach and assistant managing editor for the Dallas Morning News. Her new book is "The Book on Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Well."