Keep Cutting the Clutter

We call them redundancies: unnecessary words that weigh down our writing. In A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, the classic British style guide published in 1926, Henry W. Fowler had a more colorful name for them--"abstract appendages":

Writers who are careless of form and desirous of emphasis often fail to notice that they are wasting words by expressing twice over in a sentence some part of it that is indeed essential but needs only to be expressed once. It is true that words are cheap, and, if the cost of them as such to the writer were the end of the matter, it would not be worth considering. The intelligent reader, however, is wont to reason, perhaps unjustly, that if his author writes loosely he probably thinks loosely also, and is therefore not worth attention.

Whatever we call them, expressions such as old customs, new innovations, free gifts, empty space, and future plans are wasteful. So our advice is to cut the needless modifiers.

For each of the following expressions (like the 200 listed in Common Redundancies), we can (completely) eliminate the needless repetition by omitting the word or phrase in parentheses.

• (acute) crisis
• (all) throughout
• autopsy (to determine the cause of death)
• bond (together)
• (fatal) murder
• (front) headlight
• goals (and objectives)
• (hot-)water heater
• include (among them)
• (necessary) requirement
• reduce (down)
• results (achieved)
• (serious) crisis
• (surrounding) circumstances
• (temporary) reprieve

Care to add an abstract appendage or two? Simply click on "comments" below.

More Ways to Cut the Clutter:

• Common Redundancies
• Tips to Cut the Clutter