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> All of you who want to sound either more "well read", or more native, this website will lead you astray.

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.

you're right of course. I should have been more clear.

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.

See: this thread even.

I know this dude who can say anything you can think of using only two words.

No shit?

Hell yeah.

Is he German?

what ever

> That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to say

And also the fewer people who can understand what you say.

> That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to 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.

Language should be task-appropriate. I teach computational aesthetics which would be impossible with the same bucket of words I use to go shopping for apples.

> 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").

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.

I think the sentence can be read both ways (which is arguably worse): it's either "limit it to once a sentence, or limit it more" or "limit it to (once or more)".

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.

I have been very clear, I need a good sub editor & proof reader. ;)

You can swap "very minimum" for "minimum". The "very minimum" means "the extreme minimum" or the "true minimum". Well, a minimum is already an extreme; and absent reasons for believing otherwise, it's reasonable to assume that a speaker wants you to believe she is truthful.

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.

Words get more precise as they get more exotic, and that is not always what you want. I saw it too much in college--students whipping a thesaurus to make their papers seem 'smarter' but in reality making them incoherent.

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.

I think the best way to sound well read is to just read more. It's very easy to spot when someone doesn't quite know the connotations of the words they use[1]. It's also hard to pick up those connotations without being exposed to the words in their natural "habitat".

[1] It's exaggerated, but you basically sound like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9xuTYrfrWM

While I wouldn't use it like this in day to day speech, in rhetorical speech the use of "very" repeatedly can be used to emphasise a point.

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.

Also, a great vocabulary is actually a disadvantage for non-native speakers if your pronunciation is not there yet, it's more likely to confuse than impress.

The point is that when you use "very", you reveal that you have not attained that level of intellect which realizes that "very" is extraneous almost every time. This insight usually comes with a large amount of time invested in reading challenging books. It has little to do with expansive vocabulary, and more to do with understanding word choice and avoiding pretension.

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.

This is very bad advice.

See, it sounds much more conclusive to say...

This is bad advice.

Adding "very" is subjective. Omitting makes it sound like fact. All of this push-back is... cute.

its still bad advice, babes.

adding very doesn't make it subjective. the whole sentence is subjective. the very is a modifier that indicates the person saying thinks its really quite bad. Don't hate on adverbs.

I love it!

Correct, it is subjective. But removing the "very" makes it _sound_ objective. It's more of a declaration than an "I think". And isn't this all about how something comes across, how it sounds, how it affects someone else?

Try it out, my advice is sound!

(...vs, Try it out, my advice is very sound!)

This topic reminds me of how exclamation marks are used, and how inclusion or omission changes the flavor of written sentences that contain the same words.

For example, "Try it out, my advice is sound." tastes different than "Try it out, my advice is sound!". The "very" betrays lack of conviction - the speaker is still trying to convince.

Communication is inherently subjective, and the subjective content conveyed by "very" above was part of the intended message.

It's very very bad advice.

whoooooosh is the sound of a joke flying overhead.

> 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

Smart people simply don't waste their time with such trite considerations such as this. Smart / Successful people achieve success on an international stage, and rub shoulders with a large amount of non-native English speaking people who are absolutely brilliant, but might not have the vocabulary of a native speaker. As such they try to limit to speech to be as simple and clear as possible.

Correct, they don't waste their time. It is baked in.

Are you following your own advice? You don't sound smart, you sound smug

"very" is a comparing/contrasting word. "Outgoing" is not a replacement for "very outgoing" any more than "tall" is a replacement for "more tall than usual". And yes, I modulated the tone of my voice there.

I agree, and was being hyperbolic. There are times when "very" is... very useful, and not just useful.

I guess I just always say "wicked" instead. It's wicked better.