Beware adverbs, counsels The Poynter Institute’s Roy Peter Clark.

Too often, they dilute the meaning of the verb or repeat it: “The building was completely destroyed.”

Instead, of using adverbs to intensify meaning, Clark suggests, use them to change meaning.

“‘Killing Me Softly’?” he writes. “Good adverb. “‘Killing Me Fiercely’? Bad adverb.”

Good modifiers:

Same thing works with adjectives. Use them to change, not intensify, meaning:

“Josef studied it, feeling as he sailed toward freedom as if he weighed nothing at all, as if every precious burden had been lifted from him.”

— Michael Chabon, author, in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

“The combination of a hard-won cynicism, low overhead, an unstintingly shoddy product line, and the American boy’s unassuageable hunger for midget radios, X-ray spectacles, and joy buzzers had enabled Anapol not only to survive the Depression but to keep his two daughters in private school …”

— Michael Chabon, author, in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

“After the coffee he recrossed the room and remained standing, stooped over the keyboard in his overcoat, while he played with both hands by the exhausted afternoon light the notes as he had written them.”

— Ian McEwan, author, in Amsterdam

‘Gently ransacked’

So, in a recent writing contest, I asked you to show us how it’s done. Two of you took me up on the challenge.

Barbara Scanlan, principal of Scanlan Creative, described Iditarod sled dog teams facing snowless conditions on the Alaska Range:

“The dogs ran along at record speeds, while the sleds, often with brakes and runners worn out, bounced helplessly behind them.”

And Amy Bridges, manager of sales proposals and RFP support for Sabre Travel Network, submitted this entry:

“The conscientious copy editor gently ransacked her confidence with every ‘Track Changes’ slash and smash.”

Barbara, your submission is beautiful. But I can’t resist your topic, Amy. Congratulations, and watch your mailbox for Words on Words, a favorite tome by my late, great copyediting teacher, John Bremner.

And thank you both for playing.

How can you use adverbs to change, not intensify, meaning?

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Source: Roy Peter Clark, Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, Little, Brown and Company (September 1, 2006)

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Turns out a Southwestern Tex-Mex salad by any other name would not taste as good.

Vivid menu descriptions — “applewood-smoked bacon,” “Maytag blue cheese” and “buttery plump pasta,” for instance — can increase restaurant sales up to 27 percent, according to research by Brian Wansink.

Furthermore, diners feel more satisfied after eating a Southwestern Tex-Mex Salad than after eating the same salad with a blander name.

So why do these adjectives sell while others just get in the way?

Deliver real meaning.

Adjectives work when they deliver real meaning and not “the illusion of meaning without its substance.”

Roger Dooley, blogger at Neuromarketing, suggests using adjectives that are:

• Vivid. “Freshly cracked,” “light-and-fluffy,” “handcrafted,” “triple-basted” and “slow-cooked” paint pictures in the readers’ minds. Those pictures are more compelling than, say, a plain, old omelet.
• Sensory. I, for one, want my bacon applewood smoked. Descriptions like this engage the readers’ senses.
• Emotional or nostalgic. “’Aged Vermont cheddar,'” he writes, “evokes images of crusty New England dairymen rather than Kraft mega-plants.” “Boodie’s Chicken Liver Masala” and “Grandma’s zucchini cookies” also evoke emotion and nostalgia.
• Specific. “Wild Alaskan” salmon conjures up “visions of vigorous, healthy fish swimming in pristine, unpolluted streams,” he writes.  A diner can dream, can’t she.
• Branded. I strongly prefer Maytag, Stilton and Roquefort to plain old blue cheese … even though I’m not that clear on the difference.

Change the picture.

Bottom line: Sprinkle in a few adjectives when they’ll change the picture in the reader’s head or otherwise engage the senses. But don’t use modifiers — gorgeous, great, groundbreaking — that just take up space.

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Why cut adjectives and adverbs from your copy?

Because modifiers:

1. Strike journalists as hype

Writing media relations pieces? Journalists hate hype and fluff … and modifiers are hype-y and fluffy.

“Be fair. Don’t stretch the truth or tell half-truths. When words such as ‘first,’ ‘best,’ ‘biggest’ or ‘only’ are used, there had better be supportive explanations.”

Journalist to researchers in the 17th Annual Bennett & Company Media Survey

No wonder people call this stuff marketing fluff. Or, as one of my clients says, “pouffle dust.”

2. Reveal shoddy research

“Frequently, we use adjectives to paper over a shortage of facts,” writes Mark Duvoisin, reporter and editor for the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call. He says:

“A ‘troubling number’ — how many is that? And who was troubled by it? Better to let the facts speak. Did half the workers fail to show? Ten percent? One percent? Give the reader the info and let her judge whether it’s troubling or not.”

3. Weaken meaning

Modifiers usually dilute, rather than intensify, your point.

“‘Very angry’ [is] always less than ‘angry,’”

Donald M. Murray, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, in Writing to Deadline: The Journalist at Work.

And casino and resort developer Steve Wynn says: “Have you seen any resort built in the last twenty years that isn’t world class? Those words have been drained of all their blood.”

4. Become clichés

Some adjectives and adverbs combine with nouns and verbs to create formulaic language.

“Knee-jerk modifiers … automatically attach themselves to some nouns. Who needs to hear about one more ‘spirited chase’? Or another ‘troubled teenager’? And haven’t we all had enough of ‘angry mobs,’ ‘nasty cuts,’ and ‘trying times’?”

Jack Hart, managing editor of the Oregonian, in A Writer’s Coach.

5. Add bulk without meaning

Besides, modifiers are “the great deceivers,” according to The Associated Press Guide to Good News Writing. Choose strong nouns and verbs instead.

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When “king of usability” Jakob Neilsen cut the fluff from a web page about Nebraska, the neutral web page was 27% more useful.

That is, web visitors were 27% more likely to be able to read the neutral version faster, understand it better, remember it longer and enjoy it more.

Online, hyperbole not only reduces usability. It also:

1. Reduces reading.

“Marketese” reduces web page reading, according to Kara Pernice, Kathryn Whitenton and Jakob Nielsen in How People Read on the Web.

“Marketese” reduces web page reading.

— Kara Pernice, Kathryn Whitenton and Jakob Nielsen in How People Read on the Web

Put that web page on a smartphone, and you make matters worse. Although killing time is the No. 1 activity we perform on mobile devices, Neilsen writes, “mobile users are in a hurry and get visibly angry at verbose sites that waste their time.”

Fluff is for pillows, not for web pages Marketing fluff reduces reading online.

2. Slashes SEO.

Cram your web page with adjectives and adverbs, and you’ll reduce your keyword density and along with it your Google juice.

After all, asks Barbara Krause, vice president of corporate communications at Krause Taylor & Associates, how many people would look for “custom designed sports footware” when “running shoes” would suffice?”

3. Decreases sharing.

In The Elements of Style, Strunk and White famously advise: “Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs.”

Turns out Strunk & White were right, says viral marketing scientist Dan Zarrella.

Adjectives and adverbs don’t perform as well on Facebook as nouns and verbs, Zarrella learned by analyzing his Facebook data set to study the relationship between parts of speech and Facebook sharing. Specifically:

• Verbs get shared most often.
• Nouns get shared a little more than average.
• Adjectives get shared a little less often than average.
• Adverbs get shared least often.

Verbs and nouns get shared on Facebook more often than average; adjectives and adverbs get shared less often than average.

— Dan Zarrella, viral marketing scientist

4. Dampens sales.

What convinces people to do business with your website? According to research by the Nielsen Norman Group, it’s facts, not fluff:

1. Level of detail: 41%
2. Layout: 16.7%
3. Visual design: 14.5%
4. Features: 8.2%
5. Tone: 6.8%
6. Deals: 4.4%
7. Price: 3.8%
8. Can’t be classified: 2.7%
9. Brand: 1.9%

“Visitors overwhelmingly prefer detail. But they don’t want to be overwhelmed by it,” says Kate Meyer, user experience specialist with Nielsen Norman Group.

They prefer detail, and they eschew fluff.

“The more florid the descriptions, the more users tune them out and go elsewhere. Sadly, the web is so smothered in vaporous content and intangible verbiage that users simply skip over it,” Nielsen writes.

“The more bad writing you push on your users, the more you train them to disregard your message. Useless content doesn’t just annoy people; it’s a leading cause of lost sales.”

“Useless content doesn’t just annoy people; it’s a leading cause of lost sales.”

— Jakob Nielsen, principal, Nielsen Norman Group

5. Cuts usability.

Nielsen is a big believer in neutral language. But when he found that his objective Nebraska rewrite was 27% more usable than the fluffy one, even he was surprised by the ROI.

Neutral language in one study increased web page usability by 27%.

— Jakob Nielsen, principal, Nielsen Norman Group

So he pondered what could be causing the difference. Here’s what he came up with:

“Promotional language imposes a cognitive burden on users who have to spend resources on filtering out the hyperbole to get at the facts.

“When people read a paragraph that starts ‘Nebraska is filled with internationally recognized attractions, ’ their first reaction is ‘no, it’s not,’ and this thought slows them down and distracts them from using the site.”

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Yes, “anal-retentive” is hyphenated. But the folks in my state — Missouri — apparently don’t care.

State officials recently left out the hyphen for the Show-Me State’s new license plates. But, they say, they won’t correct the new “Show Me State” plates because … wait for it … Missourians approved the error via an online poll.

“If the people want it that way,” a state spokesman said, “that’s what we’re going to deliver for the people.”

(Yes, I’m sure “the people” are clamoring for ungrammatical license plates.)

Hey, I’m all for tossing aside the grammar book to make copy more conversational and accessible. I never met an infinitive I didn’t want to split. And I love starting sentences with prepositions.

But leaving the hyphen out of a compound modifier actually changes its meaning.

There’s a huge difference, for instance, between a:

Man eating shark

And a:

Man-eating shark

I’d be delighted to dine with the former — but scared out of my Sorels to join the latter for a meal.

Even in Missouri.

Learn more ways to polish your grammar and punctuation.

Update: We loved this response from Dan Crouch of CAMICO Mutual Insurance Company to our original posting of this article:

“‘Show Me State’ sounds like a Russian visitor asking for a tour of all of Missouri!”

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Source: “Only in America,” The Week May 2, 2008

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