Friday, October 26, 2007

Adverbosity

I'm a sucker for qualifiers--"sort of," "rather," "just," "quite," and "too." And I'm crazy for dashes. Every editor wants to chop my adverbs. Zinsser says,
    "Most adverbs are unnecessary. You will clutter your sentence and annoy the reader if you choose a verb that has a precise meaning and then add an adverb that carries the same meaning. . . "blared loudly," "mostly flabbergasted," and "moped dejectedly."
But then, Zinsser doesn't think much of adjectives, either--"stately elms," "frisky kittens" and "hard-bitten detectives.' He likes strong verbs. At nHumanities it was suggested
    "Kill the modifiers. This is machete work, so wrap a bandanna around your face and grab some shop goggles. No reader is going to believe that your process is innovative or your product is world-class just because you say so, so kill those adjectives. Don’t feel sorry for them. They have no feelings."
So I struggled with film critic Joe Morgenstern's article today on Dan in Real Life, and the new Jimmy Carter documentary. There were so many adverbs (and adjectives), I was mostly and dejectedly flabbergasted.
    strives desperately
    romantically involved (if a man and woman are involved, doesn't that mean romantically?)
    awfully heartily (adverb modifying an adverb--double whammy)
    singularly unpleasant
    notoriously homely
    inexplicably awful
    terribly tedious
    extremely small (how about tiny?)
    quite disarmingly
    genuinely sweet

    unquenchably energetic
    singular passion
    slightly stooped
    essentially undiminished
    mostly calm
    patiently didactic
    uncomfortably admiring advertisement
    narrowly focused
    mostly uncritical view
    uncritical but not unaffecting
    peregrinating conscience (I had to look this one up--means traveling)
Whew! Is it just me? Maybe he's British. They like their sentences fully and heartily packed.

1 comment:

JAM said...

I don't like critics much to start with. On my blog I shoot from the hip a lot, so I probably don't have any room to talk about other's but I have always been amazed at what newspaper writers get away with. I guess I could try to be more careful on my blog as practice in good writing, but by the time I write and post, I've forgotten all about going back over things with a careful eye.

Speaking of William Zinsser, he wrote a book called, "Writing About Your Life: A Journey Into The Past" about writing personal stories. I LOVE this book and reread it at least once a year. He has had quite an interesting life and uses his own stories to illustrate his points.