‘Very’ is a very bad word
Improve your writing by limiting its use
I took a writing course some time ago where the instructor asked me to cut down on my word count. She said it was too long for a particular magazine. I had a very hard, I mean difficult time doing so because I loved every word and sentence in the story. She showed me a few ways of reducing my word count, one of which was to eliminate the use of the word ‘very’.
‘Very’ is a very tempting word to use. Oops! It is easy to be lured into using it. It adds emphasis to the very thing we're trying to describe.
We don’t want it to be hot. We want it to be very hot.
It wasn’t cold. It was very cold.
She isn’t old. She’s very old.
You get the idea. There is a very good, I mean better way.
What is its use
As mentioned before, very denotes a great or high degree of something. When we say a mountain is very high, we’re not saying it’s the highest mountain. We may be in awe of its height compared to some other high object.
Or if the water is very hot, we may be describing something we can’t put a finger into or drink until it cools down.
