Deletable Phrases

A particular kind of TextSmell: Words and phrases that add no meaning to a sentence.

TheElementsOfStyle mentions some of these (though my copy is on permaloan, so someone with a copy please help).

The neat thing about discovering these phrases is that they allow you to condense text algebraically.More advanced condensation requires much thought -- these are freebies.

The List:

personally - Who else is speaking? "I, personally, believe that..." vs. "I believe that..."
- You can delete "I believe that" unless it is unclear whose opinions you are expressing or a reader might think you are expressing objective facts rather than subjective beliefs.
"needless to say" or "obviously" indicates that you can delete the entire clause or sentence. If it's needless to say, why not leave it out? Because it's normally not obvious at all!
Non-specific qualifying words like "very", "somewhat", "a little", "quite". Their meanings are unclear. Statements are stronger without them.
Conclusive phrases like "Going forward, ...", "At the end of the day, ...", "What it all comes down to is ...". Sometimes needed as a signal that you are (finally!) going to give an important point or a summary, but otherwise meaningless and ineffective if overused.
...many others -- but we deleted them... ;-)

I disagree, mildly, about "obviously" (though not about "needless to say"). "Obviously X" means "it is obvious that X is true, once the question is raised". That doesn't imply that it's obviously relevant. So there's a legitimate use of "obviously" when something is obviously true and non-obviously relevant. Unfortunately, "obviously" usually means "as you'll see if you think about it for a few minutes, and as I'd like to make you think I saw much faster" or "controversially, but I'm hoping I can intimidate you into not questioning this"; these uses are indeed deletable. -- GarethMcCaughan

Well, all of these phrases has some utility, otherwise they wouldn't be in the language. For example, "personally" can be used to offset the author's personal views from an objective piece of text. Even phrases like "For example" could be deleted, as it should be obvious from the example that you're giving an example, but making it explicit can improve clarity. But the point of this page is to identify words that can usually be deleted. -- BrentNewhall

Errr, no. "Very painful" is not the same as "painful." We're going for words that can be deleted, not ones that require refactoring.

In many cases, "very painful" is the same as "painful" for the purpose of whatever point is being made. How much worse is "very painful" over "painful"? If the degree is important, being specific about the degree is important. If the degree is not important, then it's deletable. As stated in the last section, there is no word or phrase that can always be deleted without any change in meaning or emphasis, but it is good to have a list of likely candidates. We are looking for TextSmells, not trying to find some way to automatically delete words from documents.

Phrases like "I strongly disagree" are usually more meaningful without the adverb. In other words, it means "I disagree, and dislike your idea so much that it evoked anger or frustration". A simple "I disagree" conveys the same information without the emotional baggage.

What if you want the emotional baggage? There are a lot of contexts where emotional baggage is important.

Many of the uses of deletable phrases are attempts by the author to subtly indicate feelings without really indicating them. "This pisses me off, and I can't explain why" would be much clearer, but most authors are afraid to write that. So they include these meaningless hems and haws, in the hope that the readers will sense their emotional state. The result is the kind of mush that TheElementsOfStyle advises against. If you want to make your emotions clear, then make your emotions clear. If you don't want to make your emotions clear, then don't write about them.

My favorite deletable phrase is anything of the form "We will do task X if we have sufficient time and budget remaining". You are almost never going to have extra time or money after the critical things are done, so listing the nice-to-haves wastes your time and serves only to emphasize what you didn't do, rather than what you did.