Aug 2, 2012

Yet more superfluous words

Writing about Taiwan's countryside recently, I typed out these two sentences, and immediately saw words that would be better be taken out. As in the previous post, the superfluous words are bolded.

To give cityfolk a taste of farming life and the satisfaction of nurturing something which they can later eat...

Some sanheyuan are cramped; others have more than enough space for an extended family of 15.

Which often appears on lists of perennial candidates for editing out. More than is often not needed. If a house (a sanheyuan is a traditional Taiwanese bungalow) can accommodate more than 15 people, it obviously has enough space for 15; two words can be dropped, and you can get closer to your target word count.

No comments:

Post a Comment