Firstly this appears to be a way to boast about the size of your vocabulary. That's great, but, frankly you are walking into a bigarsed zone of unintended connotations. Its more than likely to do the exact opposite.
Second, half of the suggestions are wrong. for example "very ashamed" is not the same as repentant. shame and regret are two similar things, but not the same. same with "very healthy" being a synonym for exuberant. Exuberant is full of energy, not feeling healthy. again linked but not the same.
All of you who want to sound either more "well read", or more native, this website will lead you astray.
All of you who are non-native, this website will confuse you and make you question your understanding. listen to bbc radio4/read the financial times, it will be better for you and there is wide range of styles to choose from (in the case of the BBC its free too)
using 'very' is perfectly fine, just try to limit it's use to once a sentence at the very minimum(no you can't swap very minimum for "the least" maybe "at the very least"). "Very" adds emphasis in a clear and understandable way. in other words, it can make thing very readable, without very much effort. (yes I am taking the piss.)
[1] apart from a few circumstances
I wholeheartedly agree that excessive and unnecessary verbiage can be a tiresome impediment to the clear transmission of ideas.
That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to say. A wide vocabulary is particularly useful when addressing complex subjects.
And also the fewer people who can understand what you say.
Sure, you can say more things. That's great, if your goal is to talk a lot without caring if anyone else around you is listening to what you're saying.
building vocab is _awesome_ everyone who can, should do it. but learning when to use those fancy new words is _more_ important. Getting good source material is key to that.
s/min/max/g
I like to imagine it always being written in italics. If you don’t want it standing out and being very noticeable, then don’t use it at all.
Which goes to show that to communicate clearly a well-thought-out sentence structure is more important than fretting over the exact word to use.
You can use "very" simply for emphasis, rather like "literally" is often used; "I did my very best". If it's really being used just for emphasis, then you can delete the word "very", and simply set the following word in bold or somethiing.
I agree, "very" is ok, but it is a crutch. In many of these cases, just dropping the 'very' would be better than picking a new word.
[1] It's exaggerated, but you basically sound like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9xuTYrfrWM
Someone warning against dangerous driving might say "a car at speed can be dangerous because it's very heavy, it's going very fast and so it's very likely to kill or give life changing injuries to somebody if it collides with them."
I think it has a better effect when spoken than when written, though.
We pick "very" when we have not trained ourselves to be conscious of word choice. When we become conscious of it, we stop saying "very" quite naturally.
And we start using annoying words like "quite".
For anyone trying to sound like they have a better grasp of English, definitely lose the "very".
Here's an example: which is better? "gregarious" or "very outgoing"?
(It's a trick question - they're both bad... the correct answer is "outgoing")
If you want to sound actually smart, remove words like "very", and don't change "outgoing" to "gregarious". The only people who use "gregarious" in a normal conversation are people who are trying to sound smart. A smart person is conscious of how to avoid using pretentious words in normal conversation. Smart people usually don't _need_ to demonstrate that they are smart.
To sound intelligent, simply use the tone of your voice to indicate that you could say "very", but instead you just say "outgoing" - perhaps with some inflection or cadence variation. Smart people notice when someone omits words like "very", because they have been faced with the same issue.
> Smart people notice when someone omits words like "very", because they struggle with the same issue.
Snobs notice. You are confusing snobbery with intelligence.
there is nothing wrong with very, some people obviously are very passionate about it's use. However to imply its as detrimental to conveyed intellect as a malapropism is frankly bollocks[1]. Keep using very, it'll make you happy.
[1]imply it makes you sound stupid, like you've got a word wrong, for my ESL friends
I guess I just always say "wicked" instead. It's wicked better.
This is bad advice.
Adding "very" is subjective. Omitting makes it sound like fact. All of this push-back is... cute.
The important corollary here is that not all language needs to be poetical. It's OK to use generic language in a lot of situations. Sometimes "I'm very sorry to hear that ____" is the tool for the social situation.
I believe that the original meaning is lost [or warped at least] when it becomes synonymous with bleak, cheerless, chill, Cimmerian, cloudy, cold, depressing...
But since it means ‘slow’ it also relates to blue, dejected, depressed, despondent, down, droopy, hangdog, inconsolable, low, melancholic[0].
Compare "I was sad to hear about your grandmother" or "I was very sad..." with "I was morose..." or "I was inconsolable..." When it really matters, you need to drop the pretensions from your writing and just be normal.
I think using "very lazy" is quite fine. If you're not just simply lazy, but much more so -- yet fall short of *exceptionally* lazy: you are very lazy.
The same with very tired. If I'm exhausted, I will simply use exhausted. But if I don't feel exhausted, but simply very tired, then I feel I would be acting "puerile"[0] in trying to exaggerate my emotions to be something more than they really are. If I am exhausted, then I feel that I urgently need rest immediately; and if I'm tired, then perhaps I could do with some rest, but it can always wait; but then if I'm very tired, perhaps it means I'm somewhere between urgently needing rest and within my ability to put off rest? Some sort of in-between state? But how can that be: needing now or not needing rest now is binary -- there isn't any notable in-between there, like the cliche of "you're either pregnant or not" (but perhaps that too breaks down depending on our exactness of the definition of "pregnant." Is pregnancy determined as the exact moment the egg is fertilized or only when a woman's urine, a short time later, contains an elevated level of hCG?). In that case, then we could do away with "very tired." And if for some normal reason another person were to have different personal definitions for what they feel is their "tired" and "exhausted," then this would be reopened again, and we'd have to start again into another discussion.
I cannot find a fitting end to this carb-fueled rant. I've become self-conscious of all of the "technique" English teachers beat into me, and I really don't like it, and don't want to keep on writing. Run-on sentences: "cannot ever ever use those." Transition words: "they must be used liberally." Punctuation: "there is an agreed upon set of rules on how and when they should and shan't be used." Passive vs. active voice, prepositional placement, cliches, etc. "If you don't follow these rules and techniques, then you are simply a fool! We will learn you write good! Mark Twain's stylistic choices be damned."
I find I cannot enjoy writing, when the spectres of pedagogues long past haunt me at every sentence; and I am spending more and more time having to unlearn what was taught to me in school.
[0] ;-)
Happy. Very Happy. Ecstatic.
“Very sad” it is, then, on the technical Slack.
wow, that's some word of the year type shit. it means "beautiful" for those who were about to look it up.
Basically, what does horgous look like https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cogs.12791
See Lojban for a very practical and clear language, which only allows you to create words packed with too much meaning when you are constructing metaphors using rafsi forms.
very + tired = spent
very + sad = miserable
I'm not sure which I prefer. You are going for a more specific word, so the accuracy depends on the context.
Many of the proposed alternatives I saw clicking through 'random' have a subtlety or specificity that the original 'very adj' doesn't - so it sounds like you mean something you might not (probably don't) if you say 'colossal' instead of 'tall' or 'emaciated' instead of 'skinny' for example.
And 'pungent' instead of 'tasty' is just plain wrong.
I will suggest one more thing. Define an acronym, abbreviation once before usage.
I even thought it had to do with sign language at first but didn't get the meaning of the sentence in that case!
---
A little off-topic but that makes me think of another HN thread some months ago talking about acronyms like "SRE" or "SWE" (and some others I since forgot), that many HNers assumed to be understood by everyone. Many non-american/english developers actually never encountered those (including I, I've been software engineer since at least 8 years and never saw those terms beside HN, like I would think most in my country) and it led to the same kind of incomprehension.
first link I get
Normally nimble refers to a physical action. It can refer to intelligence but you would typically say "nimble minded" or similar.
Perhaps better if the website proposed a list of options, with a comment on how they differ?
I clicked through a few random ones. For "very ill" it gave "lifeless" and for "very frustrated" it gave "infuriating", both of which probably aren't what you mean!
As noted (very or not) unique and incomparable are not the same. These words have nuanced differences.
Every word I checked failed to provide the a proper equivalent. Context matters.
very hard is not always demanding
very clean =/= sparkling
very old =/= ancient
very dark =/= bleak
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.
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)
Sparkling was also immaculate. "Demanding" was also arduous, grueling, backbreaking, and formidable.
Surely one of those would work for replacing "very hard" in a sentence? If not, then use your own imagination. "Complicated", "tedious", "rock hard", etc.
Sometimes you have no choice but to throw a "very" in there. But if you're the type to lean on that word, then it's worthwhile to explore alternatives to avoid boring writing.
Sure, "bleak" doesn't work for "very dark" when you're talking about a literal lack of light, but it would probably work when describing a certain type of film, or an awful situation. I don't think the site is trying to say "every time you want to use 'very dark', use 'bleak' instead"; it's just trying to give you alternatives that might -- but might not -- fit the usage you're looking for.
Beyond that, I do agree with the overall motive here: "very" is often a lazy intensifier, when we could be much more expressive in our speech or (especially) writing. For all its faults, the English language does offer decent breadth when it comes to synonyms of various intensity.
For example, if you’re writing “very tall”, change it into “tall” and re-read the sentence. It’ll be better.
I learned this by reading Scott Adams’ excellent 3-minute essay on writing: https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the...
(Of course) you can (always) (just) remove words from a sentence. The (very) idea that doing so will (always) result in a "better" sentence is nonsensical.
The Empire State Building is a very tall building, but it is not the tallest. King Kong is a tall gorilla, and he is the tallest. Many examples are contrived. This example is contrived. I'm sorry, but I'm not very sorry.
In other words, don't use this site blindly.
"very hard" -> "difficult"
Which is interesting because that's also an opinionated synonym for "hard", which without context has many definitions and interpretations. I'm also not even sure I think of "difficult" as being more hard than hard. I digress. Have a good evening.
Very true!
For example:
Very + Old = Ancient
My granda is very old vs My grandma is ancient.
It's obviously a relative term, so I would hope this isn't considered "rude" more generally.
Even objectively, if life expectancy is 75 in a region, saying that someone 70+ is "old", or someone 85+ is "very old" sounds "correct" rather than rude. Is "very young" rude as well?
Is it rude to say that someone is very short or very tall? I mean, that 6ft basketball player is very short.
Yes, some will take offence at any objective statement of fact, and some of these are cultural (tall is good, short is not; young is good, short is not), but if your point is not to denigrate, then you are not rude imho.
Not yet added! :(
Alternatively, saying that "I went to a marvelous restaurant" better indicates that my experience was exceptional.
Most of the adjectives in this app have multiple alternatives, one of which is likely closer to what you're trying to represent.
Or to put it another way: concepts like "smartness" are complicated and multidimensional. Someone who is "very smart" could be: good at their job, naturally intelligent, built up knowledge though experience and hard work, street-smart, smarter than average, smartest person in the world ever etc.
I wouldn't say there's always a better single word alternative to "very adjective" but it's worth thinking about when writing (and probably not worth thinking about in everyday speech!).
It definitely happens both ways, but I think it's much more damaging to those who are perceived as being dumb, or whose ideas are not considered, because they're direct/plain.
I see this fairly often in meetings. Someone says something very direct and plain, with the root of the problem laid out, but it fails some "complexity" threshold that makes the contrived, incorrect, but fancifully worded explanation get more traction, eventually looping back around to the simple explanation, with no real acknowledgment.
Nice, although a rather large group of TV viewers of The West Wing know that "unique means one of a kind, something can't be very unique"[0]. It still amazes me how some of the quotes from that show stick with me all these years later.
0) https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE?t=162 or the whole scene https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE
A tee-shirt which is a distinct colour is unique. A tee-shirt which is a distinct colour, distinct fit, distinct size and has a distinct motif could perhaps be described as being 'very unique'.
Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'. Your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
[1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:William_Allen_White
[2] "It is a very important factor that he must weigh soberly ..."
Not to mention that giving people credit is always laudable and should be done much more, not less.
That to me makes the whole quoting one liners format useless if the quote doesn't stand on its own(except when it's used ironically?)
Open a few good books and essays, and see if there are adverbs, "very", passive voices, or other bad forms. These are reputable works written by careful and capable writers, and enjoyed by many readers. If they are all deemed wrong in the eyes of such advice, it's the advice that's wrong.
The valuable lesson is to actively think about the words you use, whether the text accurately convey what you mean, in the tone you desire, and is readable by your intended audience.
I'd say a good pair of thesaurus and dictionary is much better than this website. At least you got multiple candidates, an explanation of each, and get to choose the most appropriate one.
It's not saying "never ever ever ever use 'very'" or "if you want to use 'very', these are always the words you should use, no matter the context".
It's a gentle nudge to remind us that often "very" is something that we reach for because we are too lazy to come up with a more expressive word. The words the site comes up with won't be appropriate for every context where you'd otherwise just prefix a "very". That's fine. It's a starting point, not the end-all be-all. And sometimes a "very" ends up being the way to go. That's also fine.
Jesting aside, yes, I would echo this and a couple other comments: the point is to nudge yourself to think a bit more about diction, and spotting the word "very" is an easy trigger to do that.
Most replacements for very + something will be more precise, more evocative and just sound better. Of course, while more precise, they may be more inaccurate. You trade the shotgun of "very" for a sniper rifle, and that requires more careful aim.
(“Substitute X for Y” advice, OTOH, is usually just wrong.)
Bravo
When writing, you should think carefully about your word choice, and adapt it for your audience, context, intended effect, etc.
"Lose the very" is the exact opposite of thinking carefully. It ignores all the subtle shades of meaning that different words bring. Almost no words have direct swap-in synonyms.
If you follow this advice, you end up with a mess of incoherent verbiage that (probably) says something very different to what was intended.
Which I actually prefer.
I use "very" a lot, because it's a well-understood modifier. "very bad" is cleared than "appalling". It will be understood by all without needing a large vocabulary.
An alternative is to use the "plus-" and "doubleplus-" prefixes.
I've never come across that, that sounds plus-awkward to me, but is it some sort of pan-language standard? And did I do it correctly?
"My car is very fast" -> "My car is breakneck"
"It's going to be very cold tomorrow" -> "It's going to be Siberian tomorrow"
"Those shoes are very expensive" -> "Those shoes are lavish"
"No. Sheesh, I just meant it's going to be very cold tomorrow!"
But their the main point stands strongly ... take the time and devote the thought to choosing the correct word, and you'll produce better prose. Your text will be compact, precise, and more readable.
I do really like "It's going to be Siberian tomorrow" though, I might start using that one.
(some of these are false positives, e.g. "this very sword", where it's not used as an intensifier)
I don't understand this quest that certain pencil-pushers seem to have with wanting to restrict the usage of certain words or even entire grammatical constructions (e.g. the crusade against the passive voice). Good writing means thinking about your words, your sentence structure, etc., yes - but not arbitrarily throwing out half of the language because of some weird dogmas.
They wanted every bit of dialogue to be broadcast or yelled or shouted or explained or cried and so on. If you actually read something like that it's bloody tedious, unless you're going for Homeric I think the better advice is to simply say 'said' more often!
The point of careful and nuanced words is that you should use them where it matters. In many cases, especially in prose, it doesn't and "said" is more than enough.
(oh and also, despite its flowery language at times, Homeric language is full of repetitive turns of phrases too)
Absolutely, as I understand it that's believed to be a direct result of it being passed down orally, a technique for memorisation.
I just meant that the dialogue is generally colourfully exclaimed, never merely 'said'; though plenty of those individual words even (for describing how it's.. said) are repeated endlessly.
Though, I've only read one English translation, so I did hesitate to draw the comparison. I assume no respectable translator would start 'flowering up' a text like that if it did hypothetically say the equivalent of 'said' all the time though.
very slightly => no result
very not => no result
;(
On the other hand, there's a downside risk of replacing unimaginative writing with confused writing. "very + fragile -> feeble" is absolutely not a reliable translation[1]. The suggestions furnished by this service seem to generally 'work' in the sense that their possible meanings include "very + (category)," but without context you explode the set of messages you might communicate. Something that is fragile breaks easily. Something that is very fragile more so. Something that is feeble is lacking strength in general, it may give out at any time, it connotes a sense of being underweight, etc. All concepts that "very fragile" may be hoping to avoid invoking (however clumsily).
Switching words switches meanings.
[1] One might argue that 'fragile' does not need assistance at all in this case.
So I say: let a standalone word suffice, whenever possible. Save emphasis for appropriate moments.
For many of them, looking into multiple dictionaries it appears that they are synonymous of the word, rather than a stronger meaning.
The problem here is, as you can see from the fact that 100% of this thread is pointing out how badly that website works, it completely misses the mark on what it promises to do.
If I wanted synonyms I would search for synonyms, if I wanted to emphasize something then I may want to use this website. Except it's just another synonyms website.
In German:
sehr schnell (very fast) -> blitzschnell (lightning fast)
sehr gross (very big) -> riesengross (giant big)
sehr reich (very rich) -> steinreich (stone rich)
sehr arm (very poor) -> bettelarm (beggar poor)
It's a bit easier vocab-wise for foreigners.
In German you have hundreds of those (incl. "eiskalt" - ice cold and "hundemüde" - dog tired) but I failed to find a list -.-
This might be a useful way to discover words for some writers. It's unfortunate that it also supports and validates the meme of this sort of very simplistic, trivial, easily parroted, stick-in-head, catchphrase-based writing advice meme.
The only way to write some sentences correctly is to use the word "only". And sometimes that that can't be removed, without changing the meaning. Or that's just the way you like it and that's that. It's like how premature optimisation is the root of all evil so you should never consider performance before the beta. Like adverbs, and starting sentences with a conjunction, or the inscrutable semicolon literal emdash all of these writing advice memes are very, very flawed.
Proponents of such things might claim that "obviously" you're (only) meant to apply such an intensely absolute rule where appropriate. Take chillpills, grandparent. I just hope that it's quite invisible that I find this somewhat hilarious, but also quite miserable.
Applied to language, the word 'very' is great. It can be used in many occasions and is generally understood. What's wrong with that?
(:
Eg. many in the tech world are not native English speakers, and this surely translates to most content to be published on the web.
While I do appreciate learning a lot more of the literary English vocabulary, I prefer to do that through well known works of fiction, and only seldomly through texts I read for my work (eg. API documentation).
Obligatory caveat: I'm a second-language English speaker but I've been fluent for some twenty years and read and write English on a daily basis.
I expected it to suggest "exhausted" but that just feels like a synonym (interestingly, "very exhausted" has no available suggestion). It also implies prior physical or mental effort, whereas "very tired" could also be the result of bad or insufficient sleep. Synonyms are rarely equivalent and this one just seems to suggest context that may be inappropriate.
"Spent" seems like a more obvious example of this problem, putting the emphasis on depletion of energy rather than not having recovered in the first place. I'd also say it's less approachable as it's a colloquial metaphor. I know I had to do a double take when I came across this use as a learner. Either way, it's no more elegant than "very tired".
"Flagging" throws me for a loop. I have no intutive sense what that word is even intended to mean in this context. The dictionary merely suggests it's a synonym for "exhausted" but provides no etymological information or context. I would guess it's metaphorical (in the sense of "giving up" by waving a flag of surrender, or signaling for help as if waving a flag) but I wouldn't have guessed the meaning from reading it without context. Especially as I've only ever seen it used as a transitive word, meaning to mark something for review or special treatment.
Sure, avoid "very" if you want to write literature. But if you're writing for clarity rather than art, please stick to "very" if it avoids digging through a thesaurus just for the sake of it.
Obviously, words have nuance of meaning dependent on multiple factors.
The point, it seems to me, is just to try to write more creatively, even in work and business.
Poetry can fill even the tiniest spaces. There is always a little room for it.
Very dangerous => Treacherous
Definition of treacherous: guilty of or involving betrayal or deception.
Of course things can be dangerous and even very dangerous without betrayal or deception. Climbing Mount Everest is very dangerous. But is it treacherous?
But there are many other words that could replace "very dangerous" in certain contexts: perilous, deadly, precarious, etc. Each has specific connotations, or only makes sense in specific contexts.
Can it be worth replacing "very X" with a more specific word? Perhaps. Mere mechanical search and replace won't work. As Mark Twain wrote:
> The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. 'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
"Very" is a safe choice, and perfectly fine in many sorts of quick, casual writing. Trying to find the perfect word can occasionally be treacherous[1] for non-native speakers. They might choose a word with a unexpected meaning.
[1] OK, I did that deliberately. I'm very sorry, but not actually repentant.
What?
bravery - very = bra
delivery - very = deli
slavery - very = sla
A: Hella!!!
Q: How many Southern Californians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Totally!!!
There's a perceptual dialectological difference between "hella pregnant" (Northern California) and "totally pregnant" (Southern California).
Hella Nor Cal or Totally So Cal? The Perceptual Dialectology of California
http://eng.sagepub.com/content/35/4/325.abstract
https://web.archive.org/web/20141008111115/https://people.du...
This study provides the first detailed account of perceptual dialectology within California (as well as one of the first accounts of perceptual dialectology within any single state). Quantitative analysis of a map-labeling task carried out in Southern California reveals that California's most salient linguistic boundary is between the northern and southern regions of the state. Whereas studies of the perceptual dialectology of the United States as a whole have focused almost exclusively on regional dialect differences, respondents associated particular regions of California less with distinctive dialects than with differences in language (English versus Spanish), slang use, and social groups. The diverse sociolinguistic situation of California is reflected in the emphasis both on highly salient social groups thought to be stereotypical of California by residents and nonresidents alike (e.g., surfers) and on groups that, though prominent in the cultural landscape of the state, remain largely unrecognized by outsiders (e.g., hicks).
[...]
By far, the most frequently remarked-upon slang term in the map-labeling data was hella, accounting for 47.4 percent of the slang and other lexical labels. Hella is a slang term originating in Northern California and one that remains—aside from a few brief moments in the national spotlight due to its circulation in popular culture— largely restricted to that region (Bucholtz 2006). The term, which apparently lexicalized from (a) hell of (a), functions as both a quantifier (There were hella people there) and an intensifier (He runs hella fast). Four respondents also mentioned the slang term hecka, the G-rated equivalent of hella, but this term was not counted separately, because tokens of hecka always co-occurred with hella. For Southern Californians in particular, hella represents a crucial shibboleth separating the two major regions of the state. As shown in Figure 7, respondents tended to identify hella overwhelmingly as a Northern California slang term, and its appearance in other regions of the map drops dramatically from north to south. Thus Northern California was variously labeled the hellas, Land of the Hella’s, and Hella capital, and one respondent provided an isogloss designating “the ‘hella’ line.” (In the map data, the Central Coast around Santa Barbara seemed to be the dividing line between users and nonusers of hella, and the fact that the study was conducted in this region may have enhanced respondents’ focus on this particular issue.) [*10: The respondent’s confusion may also be due to the existence of the Crips, a notorious Los Angeles–based gang.] Hella users were also negatively evaluated by Southern Californians, and the term came in for a good deal of criticism, such as Hella is not a real word and [hecka is] probably the worst word ever.
Isogloss:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isogloss
Hella:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hella
>Hella is an American slang term that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good" and was eventually added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002. It is possibly a contraction of the phrase "hell of a" or "hell of a lot [of]", in turn reduced to "hell of", though some scholars doubt this etymology since its grammatical usage does not align with those phrases. It often appears in place of the words "really", "a lot", "totally", "very", and in some cases, "yes". Whereas hell of a is generally used with a noun, according to linguist Pamela Munro, hella is primarily used to modify an adjective such as "good".
Usage:
Intensifier
While intensifiers similar to hella exist in many colloquial varieties, hella is uncommonly flexible. It can be used to modify almost any part of speech, as shown below:
That pizza was hella good: hella modifies the adjective good, where Standard American English would use very.
Chris's pizza is hella better than anyone else's: hella modifies the adjective better, replacing much.
I ate hella pizza: hella modifies the noun pizza, replacing a lot of.
I hella bought four pizzas: hella modifies the verb to buy, replacing really or totally.
I ran to the pizza joint hella quickly: hella modifies the adverb quickly, replacing very.
Was the party fun last night? -- Hella!: hella is used on its own as a reply replacing very or totally.
SI prefix
An online petition begun in 2010 by Austin Sendek of Yreka, California seeks to establish "hella-" as the SI prefix for 1027. The prefix was recognized by Google in May 2010, and Wolfram Alpha in May 2011. In 2013, Andrew McAfee suggested the term hellabyte with this usage.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788993
Quixotic Californian crusade to officially recognize the hellabyte (theregister.com)
https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/hellabyte_si_prefix/
The Californians:
While it’s fine that the annoying student who always corrected your grammar in school has enough extra cash to host this site, it’s a shame they still haven’t applied themselves to anything useful or interesting.
Something that HAS been very helpful to me (very surprisingly to me, who was very skeptical)… outlook’s “make it more concise” hints. Makes my emails waaay more concise and direct… I hate coming across as cocky or confident but they hit the nail on the head for me. Very helpful.
"To install this package, simply ..."
very lazy
I noticed with my own writing the use of lazy structures, such as too many adverbs, very, "statement, but concession" sentences, or parenthesis for tangents.
It isn't that these things are always bad. It was only when reading my older works I realized how much I was over-using these that it made my writing as a whole worse. My way of thinking about things, imagery for scenes, everything was getting impacted by the constant use of those sentence structures. Your thoughts can't help but be impacted if you're upping the "impact" of each emotion, phrase, description to be "very" or "lovely purple".
Its OK for descriptions to stand on their own, and the same is true for simple words. A blue coat, the sad man, the lone frog in a pond in the rain.
Write different; you'll be surprised how much you think different, too.
But that isn’t how to use these tools. These tools are great for _reminding you that these other words exist._ I bet most of our writing is riddled with lazy idioms because we’re doing the hard work of turning thoughts into words. That’s hard enough without raising the bar even higher.
Once the first pass is written down however it’s valuable to do a quick skim to see “is there anything I can do to make this more readable? To make it so that my idea gets implanted in the readers brain?”
If you write a paragraph and say very three—or even two— times, a tool that can quickly give you alternatives will make your writing more readable.
My teachers also tried to get me to avoid word repetition in my writing, such as the word 'very' 'say' etc. but never explained to me why it is a bad thing.
My personal theory is the usage synonyms is important to make sentences look 'dissimilar' as possible. This aids in reading comprehension, as samey looking sentences can lead the readers to lose track of their progress, similarly how one can lose their way physically without the aid of distinctive landmarks.
This used to be a task for word vectors woman - man + king = queen
But thinking more about it, isn't it a task for GPT-3 now ?
You write your input prompt with some random known example and you ask the last one for completion.
"very + energetic = spirited \n very + nervous = shrinking \n very + arrogant = brazen \n very + upset = fuming \n very + wet = "
It would be fun to be able to apply multiple times very to a word to see what you get, and maybe trace a Dynkin diagram of the English language.
I think generally it's a good idea to avoid excessive adverbs and adjectives, but sometimes I consciously choose to use not even just 'very', but 'very, very', in cases where the simplicity of language and the excessive repetition feels appropriate to the situation. Usually in very informal online speech.
'Very' serves an important purpose, but it's most effective at it when you restrict it to situations where you absolutely need it.
For most people, there's more important ways they could improve their written and spoken communication than worrying about extraneous words.
My critical sidebar: a thesaurus-like app featured on product hunt? How about featuring a full thesaurus? The UI is nice~
For other grammar and alternative nits, I recommend https://hemingwayapp.com/ . Ex: helps remove words like “just” and suggests better active tone English writing.
I’d say combining the two apps would yield a really strong writing assistant.
very + old = dilapidated
And several others weren't much better:
very + helpful = essential
There are definitely words for which "very" is unnecessary and an alternate would be better, but in other cases the intensifier is actually the right choice.
And if you do want to reduce your usage of "very", at least check a dictionary before you trust the site's output.
Very + Cool = Dandy
Use Very dandy for extra impact. XD
Adverbs are commercials for verbs. "Literally", "actually", "truly", "unquestionably", "honestly", "totally", "so", ... are useless.
Damn ad's.
This building is very tall - this building is so tall.
I'm not very impressed.
Sorry, I mean I'm underwhelmed.
This makes me very sad. Very very sad in fact.
- "Are you Dr Watson?"
- "The very same"
- "Ah. Don't you mean ... the indistinguishable?"
- "... no."
[Fail]
I would like to see something similar for semicolons.
It also offered up “laborious” and “challenging”. None convey the actual intended meaning
Also: very + happy = jubilant very + jubilant = not yet added
very + good = sterling
“Exceptionally superstitious
Writing on the wall”
Very awful!
(give me a few minutes with a thesaurus and I'll come up with a better 302)
TL;DR: keep calm and very on.
From me it's a no. But some results are pretty good.
done.
Very + squamous = nya
Very + blue = nya
Lol
lol