101 Words I Don't Use...
very

by Paul Niquette
Copyright ©1996 Resource Books All rights reserved.
very adv. 
  1. In high degree; extremely; exceedingly. 
  2. Truly. 
Any sentence gets very much stronger with its removal.  Check it out.


Epilog

Some 14 years after publishing this essay, I had a conversation with a certain French Woman about a party she had attended at a home in Berkeley. Without irony, she described her hosts as “very alternative.”  I was instantly charmed at the exceptions to my personal proscriptions -- two at the same time.   Thus, I am henceforth prepared to tolerate the use of very if and only if that dreaded word is immediately followed by another, alternative.

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