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Want even more deets on wordiness? Click here to review. Or take a look at our entire grammar section for all the goods.
Transcript
- 00:04
Wordiness, a la Shmoop. Mr. Zazzles, the algebra teacher, has some
- 00:09
bad news that's truly terrible.
- 00:11
He just wants to let his students know that they're going to have to go ahead and do
- 00:17
those fifty problems from page 127 for homework during the Thanksgiving holiday.
- 00:21
If Mr. Zazzles' students don't break out the pitchforks and torches over his homework
Full Transcript
- 00:25
assignment...
- 00:26
...they'll send him to the guillotine for his wordiness and redundancy.
- 00:31
When we want to get someone's attention or sound important, we sometimes shoehorn
- 00:35
extra words into our sentences. We get wordy.
- 00:42
Redundancy is a kind of wordiness. It involves saying the same thing in a sentence more than
- 00:46
once, and sometimes in a different way.
- 00:48
While wordiness and redundancy can be annoying to listen to...
- 00:51
...they are really annoying to encounter in written sentences.
- 00:54
For example, when Ms. Razzle the science teacher puts a note on a lab assignment that reads,
- 01:00
"It is absolutely essential that students not mix Chemical A with Chemical B, inasmuch
- 01:06
as that would cause a massive explosion"...
- 01:09
...she's guilty of wordiness.
- 01:11
The word "essential" doesn't need to be preceded by "absolutely"...
- 01:15
...and Ms. Razzle could have used "since" or "because" instead of "inasmuch as".
- 01:21
When Ms. Doe the cook puts a sign up at the beginning of the lunch line that reads,
- 01:26
"Owing to the fact that we made too much broccoli-spinach-and-cheese casserole today,
- 01:31
go ahead and take two helpings"...
- 01:33
...she's guilty of wordiness...
- 01:35
...not to mention crimes against vegetables and cheddar.
- 01:38
The phrase "owing to the fact" could be replaced with "because"...
- 01:42
...and that "go ahead" could be excised from Ms. Doe's sign altogether.
- 01:48
When Mr. Moe the history teacher puts in his syllabus, "The required midterm book
- 01:53
report has a required length of five pages"...
- 01:56
...he's guilty of redundancy.
- 01:58
A redundancy-free sentence might read, "The midterm book report must be five pages long."
- 02:05
When Mr. Yoe the English teacher leaves a note on the whiteboard that reads, "The
- 02:10
writing assignment for the day is to write a poem about writing"...
- 02:13
...he, too, is guilty of redundancy.
- 02:15
He might have written, "Today's assignment is to compose a poem about writing."
- 02:20
When Ms. Johnson the PE teacher...writes in her journal that the reason
- 02:24
she loves Thanksgiving break is because she doesn't have to even think about work...
- 02:29
...she's also guilty of redundancy.
- 02:32
A redundancy-free sentence would be rewritten to exclude either "the reason" or "is
- 02:36
because", as these two sets of words mean the same thing.
- 02:40
Wordiness and redundancy are easy to avoid. Just look for those extra words or phrases
- 02:45
that muddy up the construction or the meaning of a sentence...
- 02:48
...and snip-snip those suckers.
- 02:50
Now, if only Mr. Zazzles would learn that using unnecessary words to announce holiday
- 02:55
math homework does not make that homework less awful... or his students less vengeful...
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