Word Choice: Precision, Register, and Dead Words

Style is mostly word choice at close range: the exact verb instead of the vague one, the concrete noun instead of the fog, and the removal of words that have died from overuse.

Vague Verbs and Their Upgrades

Get, make, do, and thing are the junk food of vocabulary — filling, never nourishing. Most sentences improve by promoting the real verb hiding in the sentence's noun or by choosing the verb that fits the action's manner.

• “She got angry” → “She snapped / flared / exploded” (choose the temperature).
• “He made a speech” → “He delivered / gave / improvised a speech.”
• “The price went up” → “The price rose / climbed / jumped / soared / inched up” — each is a different graph.
• “A thing that opens bottles” → “a bottle opener.” Name it.

Concrete Beats Abstract

Readers see nouns they can touch and doubt nouns they cannot. Where a sentence offers only abstractions (situation, aspect, factor, issue), ask: what would a camera record? Write that — then let the abstraction return as the conclusion of the concrete evidence, where it has been earned.

• “Transportation issues” → “two buses an hour, both full”.
• “A negative financial situation” → “$4,000 in debt and a rent due Friday”.
• “Various aspects of the problem” → name two aspects or delete the phrase.
• Test: if a word cannot be photographed, it must be earning its keep by organizing things that can.

Dead Words and False Elegance

Some words died of inflation: very, really, just, actually, literally (in its slang sense) — each weakens the word it touches. Others were never alive in good prose: utilize (use), leverage as a verb for everything, “in today's society”, “the fact that” as a starter. And beware false elegance: the longer synonym is not the better one — 'purchase' at the corner store, 'commence' for a picnic — register errors in a fancy costume.

• Delete “very” and upgrade the adjective instead: very tired → exhausted.
• “Utilize” → “use” in 95% of sentences. The 5%: technical distinctions.
• “Just” as a minimizer (“just wanted to ask”) is fine in email politeness — fatal in arguments.
• If a word would make a cashier blink, it does not belong in a story about a store.

Watch Out: Common Errors

Practice

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