By now we should all have removed “like” and “um” from our vocabulary, but what about our writing? Emails, tweets and articles can’t be very long these days with everyones attention span dwindling.
Here are some words Mashable suggests you cut out.
1. That. Delete it. You really never need it. If you can read the sentence and it makes sense without it, get rid of it.
2. Went. We understand you went somewhere, but how did you get there? Did you drive, walk, fly, run? Use descriptive verbs to enhance your writing and keep things interesting.
3. Honestly. It’s honestly useless. This implies that my other recommendations aren’t honest. Cut it out.
4. Absolutely. Most of the time this is just redundant to add emphasis to words, but you don’t need it.
5. Very. If you need to add very for emphasis, pick another word. Very tired? Try exhausted. Very is also a relative term. For a child, 5’1″ is very tall. For Michael Jordan, probably not.
6. Really. Just don’t. It’s really pointless. See?
7. Literally. Most people use this term incorrectly. Is the event actually happening? Did you actually die? If you did, you literally cannot live to tell the tale.
For more words to eliminate from your next test, tweet or email check out mashable.com.
