We all have them. Special little words that creep into our every sentence. They are like weeds. Sometimes we notice them, sometimes we don’t.
My weed words?
JUST
and it’s evil cousin
THAT
Before I send any manuscript to the copy editor, I go search for the words “just” and “that.” I try to decide if I want to keep them in the sentence or if another word will do. I do the same for adverbs and adjectives but that’s another rant.
What about you? What are your weed words? (List them in the comments and I’ll add them here.)
- The Walking Mark search and destroys coordinating subordinating and correlative conjunctions. He seeks and destroys the word “like”.
- Karin struggles with the word “said”
- Zoiks reminds us of the poison “this”
- Kwana also struggles with “just” and the phrase “taking it in”
Have you trained yourself out of using them? Or do you search and destroy?
I search and destroy conjunctions.
TWMark – Is there a particular conjunction that haunts you?
I remember when I first started college, and computers were relatively new, I took an English class that also taught WordPerfect-and there was a function that analyzed your writing. It would let you know how many time you used each word and based on certain key words, it would say whether your writing was more business, persuasive, scientific and I don’t remember the others (there were 5 categories.) But apart from that (not to mention it was so long ago), I don’t really know which words I tend to use as fillers.
I hate “that” and I also have trouble when I am writing dialogue. I use the word said for too often. I made a list of other words to use and keep it next to me when I’m writing so that my characters aren’t always just “saying” things. Now they exclaim, respond, ponder, whisper and all sorts of other fun things!
Claudia – I used to exclusively use WordPerfect for those kinds of tools. They have some of them in Word – but nothing like what WP used to have. Le sigh…
Karin – I’ve heard, and believe, that we should only use ‘said’. The reader’s mind ignores the word ‘said’ but get’s snagged on the other words. For faster reading manuscripts, ‘said’ is the word. (Janet Evanovich only uses ‘said’. Dan Coons doesn’t use any of them.) I only change from said when I WANT the reader’s mind to snag – like for ‘whispered’ or ‘snapped’. These words define tone or tempo. It’s interesting to me how we each have rules/ideas of what we want in our writing.
Unaware of any weed word…nor concious of any rule/ideas
Guess I need to be more observant…
I had a high school English teacher who would give papers an F if the word “this” made it to the page. I find myself rooting just that this out consistently.
I haven’t noticed any particular Weed Words, but some repetition does occur, especially if you’re in the flow of things and not editing as you go (never a good idea anyway). My trick is to read my writing out loud; I catch a LOT of errors that way.
Abimbola – *applause* Maybe you don’t have one! That’s cool!
Zoiks – Wow, ‘this’?! I’ve never checked to see if I use it a lot or a little. Isn’t it funny how individuals have these preferences and have so much influence?
Reika – I’ve done that for a number of manuscripts – taped them even. It’s a great tool!
I’m not sure. I need to check with my crit partner. I do think just is one of then though and “taking it in” is a problem for me. Not a word but a saying.
Kwana – “Taking it in” seems so specific. I wonder what it means to you. Good catch though!
Coordinating subordinating and correlative conjunctions are all on the list of the despised.
But the one I seek and destroy with every bullet in the gun is
LIKE as in the fence was LIKE snaggly teeth
TWMark – oooh “Like” is a hard word to weed out. Good point!
Looks like you’ve got me there. I often used ‘that’ in my sentences but somehow, I managed to reduce ‘just’ by changing it with “only”, or “simply”. Thanks for the blog, it’s quite helpful.
Oh wow, this post is like the very best thing and something that will really help my writing very very much!!!!
Seriously, one weed word few people ever see as such is so common it’s invisible: “the.” A phrase I’ve begun noticing is “there are” and I constantly encourage people to get the would out of their writing.
I found your great post by googling “weed words.” This is the only one on the first page that isn’t about synonyms for that recreational smoking substance. Nice to find another deviant mind. LOL.