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Excessive Verbiage 357 Views


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Transcript

00:07

Excessive Verbiage, a la Shmoop. Using too many words is like being in the

00:12

process of shoving a burning hot drumstick of KFC chicken into your mouth and still thinking

00:17

to yourself, “I want each and every one of these pieces of chicken in my mouth right

00:22

now” and then ending up immortalized forever on the wall as that guy who was so hungry

00:27

he ate a whole bucket of KFC in under a minute and then proceeded to cry for an hour…

00:32

<<completely out of breath, inhales deeply>>

00:34

Put simply, it’s a little unnecessary.

00:36

One major mistake both grammar novices and experts make is excessive verbiage – that

00:42

is, unnecessary wordiness, unneeded redundancy, too much repetition…

00:49

… um, you get it.

00:53

Heck, even the phrase excessive verbiage is excessive! The word verbiage already means

01:00

“too many words.”

01:00

When you say “excessive verbiage,” you’re really saying too many too many words.

01:13

So while you might think you sound smart and sophisticated…

01:15

…when you break it down, you actually just sound like you’re trying waaaaay too hard.

01:19

You want your sentences to be well-oiled machines…

01:22

…not big ugly clunkers, or even pimped-out Ferraris.

01:26

All the parts should work together to create the sleekest, most energy-efficient sentence

01:30

possible.

01:30

Basically, you want your sentence to be a Prius.

01:33

<<quickly, under breath>> Shmoop was not paid to advertise Prius brand vehicles. However,

01:37

if Prius would like to compensate us for the free publicity, they may contact us any time.

01:42

So how do you avoid clunky or gratuitous language? Well, here are a few tips, partially inspired

01:50

by our chicken champ up there:

01:53

First off, think about what you’re saying when you use an abbreviation.

01:57

KFC chicken? You just said Kentucky Fried Chicken chicken…

02:02

…and trust us, we tried. That doesn’t make them give you more chicken.

02:06

And that’s just a simple example – it doesn’t have to be an abbreviation. A lot

02:12

of words have built in meanings like that, so keep an eye out for them:

02:16

That “burning hot” chicken? It can just be “hot.” And if you’re getting “immortalized

02:21

forever,” you’re living forever twice.

02:23

And there’s no such thing as two forevers. Forevers isn’t even a word.

02:30

And finally, just read your sentence. Now take a part out, and read it again. If it

02:35

still has the same meaning – take the extra junk out!

02:39

Let’s try this on parts of our sentence:

02:42

“Using too many words is like being in the process of shoving chicken in your mouth…”

02:47

Do you really need “in the process of”?

02:49

Or “eating the whole bucket and then proceeding to cry for an hour…”

02:54

Change it to “eating the whole bucket, then crying for an hour.”

02:59

Nothing is lost, and you don’t have to say as much.

03:02

And uh, a good rule of thumb is probably to end the sentence before you’re completely

03:06

out of breath.

03:08

Avoid excessive verbiage – sorry, verbiage -- and you’ll be the coolest guy or girl

03:12

in town…

03:13

…well, at least to us here in Shmoopville.

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