Weingarten’s new laws of writing
(1) The Law of Conservation of Adjectives. In the old days, writers needed to burden themselves with an arsenal of modifiers adjectives that deliver subtly different connotation and emphasis. No more. Today, one only needs the adverb really, and the degree of emphasis is indicated by how many times it is used. Really, really happy would formerly have been elated. Really, really, really, really happy would formerly have been orgasmic. The really phenomenon is so strong that its limits cannot be plumbed even by the mighty Google search engine, which restricts inquiries to no more than 32 words. I can, however, report that people have used at least 32 reallys very often. How often? Really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really often. Thirty-two reallys, in quotes, returns more than 3 million hits. Here, some of the words following 32 or more reallys: like girls, hot guy, old, cool and want this (its a shirt). A quick anecdotal sampling suggests the most common word following 32 reallys is bored.
Read Prose and Cons. Good news: More people are writing. Bad news: More people are writing.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
November 21st, 2012 at 13:07
brings to mind how the tagalog word ‘sobra’ is really really really really really overused on TV. watch any local [talk]show and you’d have a grand time counting how many times said word’s been uttered.
:)
November 21st, 2012 at 13:25
Reminds us of a well-known theatre actor’s impression of a showbiz personality.
Replace the hard ‘g’ sound with ‘k’ and the ‘b’ sound with ‘p’.
Soprang kaling! Ang kaling-kaling talaka!
Nakakapaliw.
November 22nd, 2012 at 02:10
The writer might have a really bad case of OCD. In that case, adverb usage can go off the rails rather quickly.