Adjectives are a writer’s enemy

Most of the time, at least. Plus, making extra money with your writing, the lexicon of Roger Ebert, baseball terms, and more.

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Adjectives are incendiary and untrustworthy—the worst, ever.

This week, the founder of the Buffer app argues that writers need to watch out for this figure of speech. But as you can probably guess, they’re often unavoidable. (See lead sentence.)

Plus, self-published authors are making some decent cash on the side, getting to know baseball terms, the lexicon of Roger Ebert, and more.

The words that matter most: Hidden in this psychological examination of how to best convey language in a conversation is a valuable reminder about the power of words in writing. Writing for the Lifehacker blog, Leo Widrich, the founder of the Buffer app, says, Adjectives “are, in fact, one of the worst elements of speech and even make a listener or reader lose trust.” To bolster his argument, Widrich borrows from writer Kim Peres: “When someone ‘stabs’ a straw into their drink we see it, but ‘pokes swiftly’ is not so clear.” The next time you’re arguing about which adjective to use in a piece of branding copy, remember, the right answer might be neither one.

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