“So* avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.”
― N.H. Kleinbaum, Dead Poets Society
Instead...use these.
* We also don't approve of starting sentences with "So".
Updated: Apr 15, 2022
Our editors cracked up at this one.
Excuse the blurriness. The quality of the clip is a product of the quality of the original and the prowess of our clipping tool, both of which aren't, as you can see, anything to write home about*.
But on to the matter at hand, is "more wrong" wrong? You wouldn't catch our editors using it, or allowing it to pass in a formal document, but we commonly use it when we are arguing in-house about some fuzzy language aspect. Some expletives are used along, in case you are wondering.
In short, we agree with Sheldon. "More wrong" is wrong to use in a formal document. You may however use it in informal contexts, with or without accompanying expletives.
*Can you end sentences with prepositions? That's a beast for another post.
