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Excessive Verbiage, a la Shmoop. Using too many words is like being in the

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process of shoving a burning hot drumstick of KFC chicken into your mouth and still thinking

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to yourself, “I want each and every one of these pieces of chicken in my mouth right

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now” and then ending up immortalized forever on the wall as that guy who was so hungry

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he ate a whole bucket of KFC in under a minute and then proceeded to cry for an hour…

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<<completely out of breath, inhales deeply>>

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Put simply, it’s a little unnecessary.

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One major mistake both grammar novices and experts make is excessive verbiage – that

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is, unnecessary wordiness, unneeded redundancy, too much repetition…

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… um, you get it.

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Heck, even the phrase excessive verbiage is excessive! The word verbiage already means

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“too many words.”

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When you say “excessive verbiage,” you’re really saying too many too many words.

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So while you might think you sound smart and sophisticated…

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…when you break it down, you actually just sound like you’re trying waaaaay too hard.

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You want your sentences to be well-oiled machines…

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…not big ugly clunkers, or even pimped-out Ferraris.

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All the parts should work together to create the sleekest, most energy-efficient sentence

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possible.

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Basically, you want your sentence to be a Prius.

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<<quickly, under breath>> Shmoop was not paid to advertise Prius brand vehicles. However,

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if Prius would like to compensate us for the free publicity, they may contact us any time.

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So how do you avoid clunky or gratuitous language? Well, here are a few tips, partially inspired

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by our chicken champ up there:

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First off, think about what you’re saying when you use an abbreviation.

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KFC chicken? You just said Kentucky Fried Chicken chicken…

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…and trust us, we tried. That doesn’t make them give you more chicken.

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And that’s just a simple example – it doesn’t have to be an abbreviation. A lot

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of words have built in meanings like that, so keep an eye out for them:

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That “burning hot” chicken? It can just be “hot.” And if you’re getting “immortalized

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forever,” you’re living forever twice.

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And there’s no such thing as two forevers. Forevers isn’t even a word.

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And finally, just read your sentence. Now take a part out, and read it again. If it

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still has the same meaning – take the extra junk out!

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Let’s try this on parts of our sentence:

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“Using too many words is like being in the process of shoving chicken in your mouth…”

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Do you really need “in the process of”?

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Or “eating the whole bucket and then proceeding to cry for an hour…”

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Change it to “eating the whole bucket, then crying for an hour.”

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Nothing is lost, and you don’t have to say as much.

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And uh, a good rule of thumb is probably to end the sentence before you’re completely

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out of breath.

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Avoid excessive verbiage – sorry, verbiage -- and you’ll be the coolest guy or girl

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in town…

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…well, at least to us here in Shmoopville.

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