Today’s topic is drivel, the senseless composition that some of us produce every now and then, even very accomplished authors. The following excerpt is from a technical book by an accomplished writer and a respected colleague. The source is disguised by using FOO and BAR to replace some of the key identifiers. Otherwise, the text is verbatim, the same as published. By the way, my snarky judgments below are not as much a shot at the author as they are at the copy editor and publisher that let this nonsense slip through their professional filters.
Posts Tagged ‘long-winded’
Overly long-winded
Tuesday, February 5th, 2013For many people, a key obstacle to communicating better is the tendency to be verbose. We use several words when we need only one meaningful word. We end up sounding overly long-winded (a self-defining example). Long-winded, a word that has teeth, is memorably self-descriptive. It means verbose or overly wordy in getting to the point. Overly long-winded therefore means overly, overly wordy. Why take the emphasis off a great word like long-winded by adding a redundant word like overly?
Overly long-winded
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011For most people, the key obstacle to communicating better is the tendency to be verbose. We use several words when we need only one meaningful word. We end up sounding overly long-winded (a self-defining example). Long-winded, a word that has teeth, is memorably self-descriptive. It means verbose or overly wordy in getting to the point. Overly long-winded therefore means overly, overly wordy. Why take the emphasis off a great word like long-winded by adding a redundant word like overly?
Long-windedness
Friday, September 16th, 2011Most of us speak and write verbosely, using as many fluffy, multi-syllabic words as we can think of when we only need one simple, straightforward word. Here are a few examples of long-windedness that you hear every day. (more…)
