The Intensifiers That Make Writing Weaker

There is a piece of advice attributed to more or less every dead writer of note: strike out very and write damn, so the editor removes it and the writing is as it should be.

The attribution is unreliable. The observation underneath is sound, and worth taking further than it usually is.

Why intensifiers subtract

Very is meant to add force. It usually removes it, for two reasons.

It admits the adjective is not enough. Very big concedes that big did not carry the load. The reader hears the concession. A word that needed propping up arrives already weakened.

It occupies the slot where a better word would go. Very big is two words that mean less than enormous, vast, towering or cavernous, each of which also tells the reader something about how it is big. The intensifier is a placeholder for a decision not made.

Compare:

very tired / exhausted
very hungry / ravenous
very old / ancient
very clean / spotless
very funny / hilarious
very surprised / astonished

The right-hand column is shorter and stronger in every case.

The downgraders that pretend to be upgraders

Some intensifiers do not merely fail to strengthen. They actively weaken, and several are used by writers who believe they are doing the opposite:

quite — in British English usually means somewhat. Quite good is faint praise. In American English it leans towards very. This is a genuine transatlantic trap.
rather — softens. Rather difficult is less difficult than difficult.
fairly — always downgrades, despite sounding positive.
somewhat — downgrades and adds bureaucratic distance.
pretty — downgrades and lowers the register.

A performance review calling someone quite competent is not paying a compliment, at least not in Britain, and the writer may not have meant to say what they said.

Inflation

Intensifiers wear out. Each one enters the language forcefully, gets used for things that do not deserve it, and ends up meaning very little.

Terrible once meant inspiring terror. Awful meant inspiring awe. Terrific meant terrifying. Tremendous meant causing trembling. All four have been softened by overuse into vague markers of largeness or quality, and the same process is visibly underway with literally, epic, insane and devastating.

This is why reaching for the strongest available word is a losing strategy. If every problem is devastating, you have no word left for the one that actually is — and readers have learned to discount the vocabulary long before you get there.

When intensifiers earn their place

When no single word exists. Very is fine before adjectives with no strong synonym: very likely, very different, very early.

When the softening is the point. Rather and somewhat are precise instruments for hedging, and hedging is often exactly right. The results are somewhat encouraging may be the most honest sentence available.

With non-gradable adjectives, using the right form. Absolutely impossible, completely destroyed. As covered in our guide to gradable and non-gradable adjectives, these words take a different set of modifiers, and the right one does not weaken.

In speech and dialogue. People say very constantly. Stripping it out of dialogue makes characters sound like written prose, which is a worse fault than a weak intensifier.

The edit

Search a finished draft for very, really, quite, rather, fairly, somewhat, pretty and extremely. For each one, try three things in order: delete it, replace both words with one stronger word, or leave it.

Deleting works more often than anyone expects. Most sentences are unchanged in meaning and better in rhythm. And the handful that genuinely need the intensifier will be obvious, because removing it will have taken something away.