Firstly this appears to be a way to boast about the size of your vocabulary. That's great, but, frankly you are walking into a bigarsed zone of unintended connotations. Its more than likely to do the exact opposite.
Second, half of the suggestions are wrong. for example "very ashamed" is not the same as repentant. shame and regret are two similar things, but not the same. same with "very healthy" being a synonym for exuberant. Exuberant is full of energy, not feeling healthy. again linked but not the same.
All of you who want to sound either more "well read", or more native, this website will lead you astray.
All of you who are non-native, this website will confuse you and make you question your understanding. listen to bbc radio4/read the financial times, it will be better for you and there is wide range of styles to choose from (in the case of the BBC its free too)
using 'very' is perfectly fine, just try to limit it's use to once a sentence at the very minimum(no you can't swap very minimum for "the least" maybe "at the very least"). "Very" adds emphasis in a clear and understandable way. in other words, it can make thing very readable, without very much effort. (yes I am taking the piss.)
> All of you who want to sound either more "well read", or more native, this website will lead you astray.
I wholeheartedly agree that excessive and unnecessary verbiage can be a tiresome impediment to the clear transmission of ideas.
That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to say. A wide vocabulary is particularly useful when addressing complex subjects.
> That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to say.
Sure, you can say more things. That's great, if your goal is to talk a lot without caring if anyone else around you is listening to what you're saying.
you're right of course. I should have been more clear.
building vocab is _awesome_ everyone who can, should do it. but learning when to use those fancy new words is _more_ important. Getting good source material is key to that.
> using 'very' is perfectly fine, just try to limit it's use to once a sentence at the very minimum(no you can't swap very minimum for "the least" maybe "at the very least").
s/min/max/g
I like to imagine it always being written in italics. If you don’t want it standing out and being very noticeable, then don’t use it at all.
I think the sentence can be read both ways (which is arguably worse): it's either "limit it to once a sentence, or limit it more" or "limit it to (once or more)".
Which goes to show that to communicate clearly a well-thought-out sentence structure is more important than fretting over the exact word to use.
You can swap "very minimum" for "minimum". The "very minimum" means "the extreme minimum" or the "true minimum". Well, a minimum is already an extreme; and absent reasons for believing otherwise, it's reasonable to assume that a speaker wants you to believe she is truthful.
You can use "very" simply for emphasis, rather like "literally" is often used; "I did my very best". If it's really being used just for emphasis, then you can delete the word "very", and simply set the following word in bold or somethiing.
Words get more precise as they get more exotic, and that is not always what you want. I saw it too much in college--students whipping a thesaurus to make their papers seem 'smarter' but in reality making them incoherent.
I agree, "very" is ok, but it is a crutch. In many of these cases, just dropping the 'very' would be better than picking a new word.
I think the best way to sound well read is to just read more. It's very easy to spot when someone doesn't quite know the connotations of the words they use[1]. It's also hard to pick up those connotations without being exposed to the words in their natural "habitat".
While I wouldn't use it like this in day to day speech, in rhetorical speech the use of "very" repeatedly can be used to emphasise a point.
Someone warning against dangerous driving might say "a car at speed can be dangerous because it's very heavy, it's going very fast and so it's very likely to kill or give life changing injuries to somebody if it collides with them."
I think it has a better effect when spoken than when written, though.
Also, a great vocabulary is actually a disadvantage for non-native speakers if your pronunciation is not there yet, it's more likely to confuse than impress.
The point is that when you use "very", you reveal that you have not attained that level of intellect which realizes that "very" is extraneous almost every time. This insight usually comes with a large amount of time invested in reading challenging books. It has little to do with expansive vocabulary, and more to do with understanding word choice and avoiding pretension.
We pick "very" when we have not trained ourselves to be conscious of word choice. When we become conscious of it, we stop saying "very" quite naturally.
And we start using annoying words like "quite".
For anyone trying to sound like they have a better grasp of English, definitely lose the "very".
Here's an example: which is better? "gregarious" or "very outgoing"?
(It's a trick question - they're both bad... the correct answer is "outgoing")
If you want to sound actually smart, remove words like "very", and don't change "outgoing" to "gregarious". The only people who use "gregarious" in a normal conversation are people who are trying to sound smart. A smart person is conscious of how to avoid using pretentious words in normal conversation. Smart people usually don't _need_ to demonstrate that they are smart.
To sound intelligent, simply use the tone of your voice to indicate that you could say "very", but instead you just say "outgoing" - perhaps with some inflection or cadence variation. Smart people notice when someone omits words like "very", because they have been faced with the same issue.
whoooooosh is the sound of a joke flying overhead.
> Smart people notice when someone omits words like "very", because they struggle with the same issue.
Snobs notice. You are confusing snobbery with intelligence.
there is nothing wrong with very, some people obviously are very passionate about it's use. However to imply its as detrimental to conveyed intellect as a malapropism is frankly bollocks[1]. Keep using very, it'll make you happy.
[1]imply it makes you sound stupid, like you've got a word wrong, for my ESL friends
Smart people simply don't waste their time with such trite considerations such as this. Smart / Successful people achieve success on an international stage, and rub shoulders with a large amount of non-native English speaking people who are absolutely brilliant, but might not have the vocabulary of a native speaker. As such they try to limit to speech to be as simple and clear as possible.
"very" is a comparing/contrasting word. "Outgoing" is not a replacement for "very outgoing" any more than "tall" is a replacement for "more tall than usual". And yes, I modulated the tone of my voice there.
If you're an ESL speaker or something thinking this will be useful, I'd suggest caution (heh, changed that from 'very wary').
Many of the proposed alternatives I saw clicking through 'random' have a subtlety or specificity that the original 'very adj' doesn't - so it sounds like you mean something you might not (probably don't) if you say 'colossal' instead of 'tall' or 'emaciated' instead of 'skinny' for example.
And 'pungent' instead of 'tasty' is just plain wrong.
You're very right (Or "You're perfect", as this is suggesting!)
I clicked through a few random ones. For "very ill" it gave "lifeless" and for "very frustrated" it gave "infuriating", both of which probably aren't what you mean!
"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." -- The Dead Poets Society
Great movie but not the best advice - "morose" doesn't even mean "very sad", it means ill-tempered/in a bad mood. I wouldn't even say there is one good word that means "very sad", but "morose" is definitely not it. The site in question came up with "inconsolable", but that's hardly appropriate if you're talking about "very sad news" (after a few attempts it come back with "somber" which at least sort of works in that case, though I'd still struggle to imagine myself telling a friend that their divorce was "sombre news").
I think that's the point -- "very sad" is unpoetical because it doesn't convey anything more than "sad", which is itself a generic word. If you're writing poetry or fiction you want to be describing emotional states more interesting than "sad".
The important corollary here is that not all language needs to be poetical. It's OK to use generic language in a lot of situations. Sometimes "I'm very sorry to hear that ____" is the tool for the social situation.
Not meant to school or lecture anyone, but ‘morose’ stems from the Latin ‘mora’, meaning ‘delay', something slow. Examples from Latin.: _mora solvendi_ (delay in paying), _compensatio morae_ (compensation for the delay).
I believe that the original meaning is lost [or warped at least] when it becomes synonymous with bleak, cheerless, chill, Cimmerian, cloudy, cold, depressing...
But since it means ‘slow’ it also relates to blue, dejected, depressed, despondent, down, droopy, hangdog, inconsolable, low, melancholic[0].
Sometimes you're deliberately trying to be inoffensive and formal, in which case claiming you're morose makes you look like a clown.
Compare "I was sad to hear about your grandmother" or "I was very sad..." with "I was morose..." or "I was inconsolable..." When it really matters, you need to drop the pretensions from your writing and just be normal.
I think it was Mencken that most popularly called this sort of thing sophomoric, and chastised "schoolma'ams" trying to impart conscious thought and logic into the unthinking that don't much care for what it is they're doing (e.g. writing, composing music, etc.).
I think using "very lazy" is quite fine. If you're not just simply lazy, but much more so -- yet fall short of *exceptionally* lazy: you are very lazy.
The same with very tired. If I'm exhausted, I will simply use exhausted. But if I don't feel exhausted, but simply very tired, then I feel I would be acting "puerile"[0] in trying to exaggerate my emotions to be something more than they really are. If I am exhausted, then I feel that I urgently need rest immediately; and if I'm tired, then perhaps I could do with some rest, but it can always wait; but then if I'm very tired, perhaps it means I'm somewhere between urgently needing rest and within my ability to put off rest? Some sort of in-between state? But how can that be: needing now or not needing rest now is binary -- there isn't any notable in-between there, like the cliche of "you're either pregnant or not" (but perhaps that too breaks down depending on our exactness of the definition of "pregnant." Is pregnancy determined as the exact moment the egg is fertilized or only when a woman's urine, a short time later, contains an elevated level of hCG?). In that case, then we could do away with "very tired." And if for some normal reason another person were to have different personal definitions for what they feel is their "tired" and "exhausted," then this would be reopened again, and we'd have to start again into another discussion.
I cannot find a fitting end to this carb-fueled rant. I've become self-conscious of all of the "technique" English teachers beat into me, and I really don't like it, and don't want to keep on writing. Run-on sentences: "cannot ever ever use those." Transition words: "they must be used liberally." Punctuation: "there is an agreed upon set of rules on how and when they should and shan't be used." Passive vs. active voice, prepositional placement, cliches, etc. "If you don't follow these rules and techniques, then you are simply a fool! We will learn you write good! Mark Twain's stylistic choices be damned."
I find I cannot enjoy writing, when the spectres of pedagogues long past haunt me at every sentence; and I am spending more and more time having to unlearn what was taught to me in school.
It's also important to note that this type of substitution is very context-dependent. A very tired person may be exhausted, but a very tired joke is definitely not.
Since we're being pedantic, I'd point out that pulchritudinous is only used for people of great physical beauty, it's not a generic replacement for beautiful.
This also seems to reflect the debate on agglutinative vs. isolating languages, or at least languages with more words vs. less words. One style is great for creative prose and philosophy, the other is practical for real world communication with those with varying skill levels.
See Lojban for a very practical and clear language, which only allows you to create words packed with too much meaning when you are constructing metaphors using rafsi forms.
This is one of the most pernicious pieces of cargo-cult writing advice that gets smeared all over the internet.
When writing, you should think carefully about your word choice, and adapt it for your audience, context, intended effect, etc.
"Lose the very" is the exact opposite of thinking carefully. It ignores all the subtle shades of meaning that different words bring. Almost no words have direct swap-in synonyms.
If you follow this advice, you end up with a mess of incoherent verbiage that (probably) says something very different to what was intended.
Nice, although a rather large group of TV viewers of The West Wing know that "unique means one of a kind, something can't be very unique"[0]. It still amazes me how some of the quotes from that show stick with me all these years later.
Adding a degree to uniqueness would describe the delta between it and its nearest relative. Hence, "very unique" would mean something closer to exceptional or "off-the-charts" and is a perfectly reasonable construction. I get the impression the anti-very crowd haven't actually thought too deeply on the matter
How about something which is being assessed on multiple dimensions?
A tee-shirt which is a distinct colour is unique.
A tee-shirt which is a distinct colour, distinct fit, distinct size and has a distinct motif could perhaps be described as being 'very unique'.
When you write something, what it is that you are doing, to put it very (clearly excessively) plainly, is selecting words that convey some meaning in some way that pleases you, the writer. Choose your words. You can try to choose words to please others if you like, but there's not much reason to expect success from such a strategy. Choose your words. Find your audience.
This might be a useful way to discover words for some writers. It's unfortunate that it also supports and validates the meme of this sort of very simplistic, trivial, easily parroted, stick-in-head, catchphrase-based writing advice meme.
The only way to write some sentences correctly is to use the word "only". And sometimes that that can't be removed, without changing the meaning. Or that's just the way you like it and that's that. It's like how premature optimisation is the root of all evil so you should never consider performance before the beta. Like adverbs, and starting sentences with a conjunction, or the inscrutable semicolon literal emdash all of these writing advice memes are very, very flawed.
Proponents of such things might claim that "obviously" you're (only) meant to apply such an intensely absolute rule where appropriate. Take chillpills, grandparent. I just hope that it's quite invisible that I find this somewhat hilarious, but also quite miserable.
I think that is actually the motivation to avoid very. It's completely true, and important to note that "very clean" =/= "sparkling". "Very" simply intensifies the word "clean". "Sparkling" doesn't simply mean intensely clean. Instead it means (in context) that it is so clean that light reflects off the surface. It has a richer meaning.
On the other hand the way the tool presents is not the most helpful. A list would be much better. Perhaps I am trying to say that I have cleaned my carpet well. I would perhaps want "spotless" or "immaculate" rather than "very clean". But I certainly wouldn't want "sparkling." That suggestion is worthless for me, and I wouldn't want to have to keep clicking to find a relevant one. (Also, what if I meant "clean" as in "clean language". I don't think any of these suggestions would be relevant).
So not my favorite tool (a thesaurus is much better), but a novel way of presenting the idea.
An issue I have with this approach is the lack of gradation.
A very clean carpet might still not be spotless nor immaculate. You'd have to adjust and go for "almost spotless", but then is it still better than using "very" ?
Forcing people to think long and hard about the exact word they want to use is beneficial, but I'd expect we'd still fall back to modulators like "very" in most cases (the same way I'm cushioning this statement to avoid going to an extreme)
I wish this site would just list all the matches. If you keep clicking the button, it'll cycle (randomly!) through other substitutions.
Sparkling was also immaculate. "Demanding" was also arduous, grueling, backbreaking, and formidable.
Surely one of those would work for replacing "very hard" in a sentence? If not, then use your own imagination. "Complicated", "tedious", "rock hard", etc.
Sometimes you have no choice but to throw a "very" in there. But if you're the type to lean on that word, then it's worthwhile to explore alternatives to avoid boring writing.
I mostly disagree with your inequalities. Sure, in a literal sense, they are not equivalencies, but I think often they'd be a fine substitute. It doesn't really matter that the "very old" 200-year-old house" isn't literally "ancient". It doesn't really matter that the kitchen counter you just intensely scrubbed doesn't literally reflect light in a sparkly, flashy way. Exaggeration and hyperbole are valid rhetorical devices, and, given context, the listener or reader will understand what is meant.
Sure, "bleak" doesn't work for "very dark" when you're talking about a literal lack of light, but it would probably work when describing a certain type of film, or an awful situation. I don't think the site is trying to say "every time you want to use 'very dark', use 'bleak' instead"; it's just trying to give you alternatives that might -- but might not -- fit the usage you're looking for.
Beyond that, I do agree with the overall motive here: "very" is often a lazy intensifier, when we could be much more expressive in our speech or (especially) writing. For all its faults, the English language does offer decent breadth when it comes to synonyms of various intensity.
I've seen such advice in many writing forums (other examples include don't use adverbs, don't use passive voice, etc.), and while it certainly pays to heed your choice of vocabulary, I'm not convinced that simply avoiding a fixed set of words or forms is good advice. Let alone replacing them with a fixed set of substitutes.
Open a few good books and essays, and see if there are adverbs, "very", passive voices, or other bad forms. These are reputable works written by careful and capable writers, and enjoyed by many readers. If they are all deemed wrong in the eyes of such advice, it's the advice that's wrong.
The valuable lesson is to actively think about the words you use, whether the text accurately convey what you mean, in the tone you desire, and is readable by your intended audience.
I'd say a good pair of thesaurus and dictionary is much better than this website. At least you got multiple candidates, an explanation of each, and get to choose the most appropriate one.
I feel like a lot of people here are taking the point of this site much too literally.
It's not saying "never ever ever ever use 'very'" or "if you want to use 'very', these are always the words you should use, no matter the context".
It's a gentle nudge to remind us that often "very" is something that we reach for because we are too lazy to come up with a more expressive word. The words the site comes up with won't be appropriate for every context where you'd otherwise just prefix a "very". That's fine. It's a starting point, not the end-all be-all. And sometimes a "very" ends up being the way to go. That's also fine.
Hacker News people being overly literal? Can't be.
Jesting aside, yes, I would echo this and a couple other comments: the point is to nudge yourself to think a bit more about diction, and spotting the word "very" is an easy trigger to do that.
Most replacements for very + something will be more precise, more evocative and just sound better. Of course, while more precise, they may be more inaccurate. You trade the shotgun of "very" for a sniper rifle, and that requires more careful aim.
Readit News
Firstly this appears to be a way to boast about the size of your vocabulary. That's great, but, frankly you are walking into a bigarsed zone of unintended connotations. Its more than likely to do the exact opposite.
Second, half of the suggestions are wrong. for example "very ashamed" is not the same as repentant. shame and regret are two similar things, but not the same. same with "very healthy" being a synonym for exuberant. Exuberant is full of energy, not feeling healthy. again linked but not the same.
All of you who want to sound either more "well read", or more native, this website will lead you astray.
All of you who are non-native, this website will confuse you and make you question your understanding. listen to bbc radio4/read the financial times, it will be better for you and there is wide range of styles to choose from (in the case of the BBC its free too)
using 'very' is perfectly fine, just try to limit it's use to once a sentence at the very minimum(no you can't swap very minimum for "the least" maybe "at the very least"). "Very" adds emphasis in a clear and understandable way. in other words, it can make thing very readable, without very much effort. (yes I am taking the piss.)
[1] apart from a few circumstances
I wholeheartedly agree that excessive and unnecessary verbiage can be a tiresome impediment to the clear transmission of ideas.
That being said ‘the more words you know, the more things you can say’ as my old English teacher used to say. A wide vocabulary is particularly useful when addressing complex subjects.
And also the fewer people who can understand what you say.
Sure, you can say more things. That's great, if your goal is to talk a lot without caring if anyone else around you is listening to what you're saying.
building vocab is _awesome_ everyone who can, should do it. but learning when to use those fancy new words is _more_ important. Getting good source material is key to that.
s/min/max/g
I like to imagine it always being written in italics. If you don’t want it standing out and being very noticeable, then don’t use it at all.
Which goes to show that to communicate clearly a well-thought-out sentence structure is more important than fretting over the exact word to use.
You can use "very" simply for emphasis, rather like "literally" is often used; "I did my very best". If it's really being used just for emphasis, then you can delete the word "very", and simply set the following word in bold or somethiing.
I agree, "very" is ok, but it is a crutch. In many of these cases, just dropping the 'very' would be better than picking a new word.
[1] It's exaggerated, but you basically sound like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9xuTYrfrWM
Someone warning against dangerous driving might say "a car at speed can be dangerous because it's very heavy, it's going very fast and so it's very likely to kill or give life changing injuries to somebody if it collides with them."
I think it has a better effect when spoken than when written, though.
We pick "very" when we have not trained ourselves to be conscious of word choice. When we become conscious of it, we stop saying "very" quite naturally.
And we start using annoying words like "quite".
For anyone trying to sound like they have a better grasp of English, definitely lose the "very".
Here's an example: which is better? "gregarious" or "very outgoing"?
(It's a trick question - they're both bad... the correct answer is "outgoing")
If you want to sound actually smart, remove words like "very", and don't change "outgoing" to "gregarious". The only people who use "gregarious" in a normal conversation are people who are trying to sound smart. A smart person is conscious of how to avoid using pretentious words in normal conversation. Smart people usually don't _need_ to demonstrate that they are smart.
To sound intelligent, simply use the tone of your voice to indicate that you could say "very", but instead you just say "outgoing" - perhaps with some inflection or cadence variation. Smart people notice when someone omits words like "very", because they have been faced with the same issue.
> Smart people notice when someone omits words like "very", because they struggle with the same issue.
Snobs notice. You are confusing snobbery with intelligence.
there is nothing wrong with very, some people obviously are very passionate about it's use. However to imply its as detrimental to conveyed intellect as a malapropism is frankly bollocks[1]. Keep using very, it'll make you happy.
[1]imply it makes you sound stupid, like you've got a word wrong, for my ESL friends
Many of the proposed alternatives I saw clicking through 'random' have a subtlety or specificity that the original 'very adj' doesn't - so it sounds like you mean something you might not (probably don't) if you say 'colossal' instead of 'tall' or 'emaciated' instead of 'skinny' for example.
And 'pungent' instead of 'tasty' is just plain wrong.
I will suggest one more thing. Define an acronym, abbreviation once before usage.
Normally nimble refers to a physical action. It can refer to intelligence but you would typically say "nimble minded" or similar.
Perhaps better if the website proposed a list of options, with a comment on how they differ?
I clicked through a few random ones. For "very ill" it gave "lifeless" and for "very frustrated" it gave "infuriating", both of which probably aren't what you mean!
The important corollary here is that not all language needs to be poetical. It's OK to use generic language in a lot of situations. Sometimes "I'm very sorry to hear that ____" is the tool for the social situation.
I believe that the original meaning is lost [or warped at least] when it becomes synonymous with bleak, cheerless, chill, Cimmerian, cloudy, cold, depressing...
But since it means ‘slow’ it also relates to blue, dejected, depressed, despondent, down, droopy, hangdog, inconsolable, low, melancholic[0].
[0]https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/morose
Compare "I was sad to hear about your grandmother" or "I was very sad..." with "I was morose..." or "I was inconsolable..." When it really matters, you need to drop the pretensions from your writing and just be normal.
I think using "very lazy" is quite fine. If you're not just simply lazy, but much more so -- yet fall short of *exceptionally* lazy: you are very lazy.
The same with very tired. If I'm exhausted, I will simply use exhausted. But if I don't feel exhausted, but simply very tired, then I feel I would be acting "puerile"[0] in trying to exaggerate my emotions to be something more than they really are. If I am exhausted, then I feel that I urgently need rest immediately; and if I'm tired, then perhaps I could do with some rest, but it can always wait; but then if I'm very tired, perhaps it means I'm somewhere between urgently needing rest and within my ability to put off rest? Some sort of in-between state? But how can that be: needing now or not needing rest now is binary -- there isn't any notable in-between there, like the cliche of "you're either pregnant or not" (but perhaps that too breaks down depending on our exactness of the definition of "pregnant." Is pregnancy determined as the exact moment the egg is fertilized or only when a woman's urine, a short time later, contains an elevated level of hCG?). In that case, then we could do away with "very tired." And if for some normal reason another person were to have different personal definitions for what they feel is their "tired" and "exhausted," then this would be reopened again, and we'd have to start again into another discussion.
I cannot find a fitting end to this carb-fueled rant. I've become self-conscious of all of the "technique" English teachers beat into me, and I really don't like it, and don't want to keep on writing. Run-on sentences: "cannot ever ever use those." Transition words: "they must be used liberally." Punctuation: "there is an agreed upon set of rules on how and when they should and shan't be used." Passive vs. active voice, prepositional placement, cliches, etc. "If you don't follow these rules and techniques, then you are simply a fool! We will learn you write good! Mark Twain's stylistic choices be damned."
I find I cannot enjoy writing, when the spectres of pedagogues long past haunt me at every sentence; and I am spending more and more time having to unlearn what was taught to me in school.
[0] ;-)
Happy. Very Happy. Ecstatic.
“Very sad” it is, then, on the technical Slack.
wow, that's some word of the year type shit. it means "beautiful" for those who were about to look it up.
See Lojban for a very practical and clear language, which only allows you to create words packed with too much meaning when you are constructing metaphors using rafsi forms.
very + tired = spent
very + sad = miserable
I'm not sure which I prefer. You are going for a more specific word, so the accuracy depends on the context.
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When writing, you should think carefully about your word choice, and adapt it for your audience, context, intended effect, etc.
"Lose the very" is the exact opposite of thinking carefully. It ignores all the subtle shades of meaning that different words bring. Almost no words have direct swap-in synonyms.
If you follow this advice, you end up with a mess of incoherent verbiage that (probably) says something very different to what was intended.
Which I actually prefer.
Nice, although a rather large group of TV viewers of The West Wing know that "unique means one of a kind, something can't be very unique"[0]. It still amazes me how some of the quotes from that show stick with me all these years later.
0) https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE?t=162 or the whole scene https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis
A tee-shirt which is a distinct colour is unique. A tee-shirt which is a distinct colour, distinct fit, distinct size and has a distinct motif could perhaps be described as being 'very unique'.
This might be a useful way to discover words for some writers. It's unfortunate that it also supports and validates the meme of this sort of very simplistic, trivial, easily parroted, stick-in-head, catchphrase-based writing advice meme.
The only way to write some sentences correctly is to use the word "only". And sometimes that that can't be removed, without changing the meaning. Or that's just the way you like it and that's that. It's like how premature optimisation is the root of all evil so you should never consider performance before the beta. Like adverbs, and starting sentences with a conjunction, or the inscrutable semicolon literal emdash all of these writing advice memes are very, very flawed.
Proponents of such things might claim that "obviously" you're (only) meant to apply such an intensely absolute rule where appropriate. Take chillpills, grandparent. I just hope that it's quite invisible that I find this somewhat hilarious, but also quite miserable.
As noted (very or not) unique and incomparable are not the same. These words have nuanced differences.
Every word I checked failed to provide the a proper equivalent. Context matters.
very hard is not always demanding
very clean =/= sparkling
very old =/= ancient
very dark =/= bleak
On the other hand the way the tool presents is not the most helpful. A list would be much better. Perhaps I am trying to say that I have cleaned my carpet well. I would perhaps want "spotless" or "immaculate" rather than "very clean". But I certainly wouldn't want "sparkling." That suggestion is worthless for me, and I wouldn't want to have to keep clicking to find a relevant one. (Also, what if I meant "clean" as in "clean language". I don't think any of these suggestions would be relevant).
So not my favorite tool (a thesaurus is much better), but a novel way of presenting the idea.
A very clean carpet might still not be spotless nor immaculate. You'd have to adjust and go for "almost spotless", but then is it still better than using "very" ?
Forcing people to think long and hard about the exact word they want to use is beneficial, but I'd expect we'd still fall back to modulators like "very" in most cases (the same way I'm cushioning this statement to avoid going to an extreme)
Sparkling was also immaculate. "Demanding" was also arduous, grueling, backbreaking, and formidable.
Surely one of those would work for replacing "very hard" in a sentence? If not, then use your own imagination. "Complicated", "tedious", "rock hard", etc.
Sometimes you have no choice but to throw a "very" in there. But if you're the type to lean on that word, then it's worthwhile to explore alternatives to avoid boring writing.
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Sure, "bleak" doesn't work for "very dark" when you're talking about a literal lack of light, but it would probably work when describing a certain type of film, or an awful situation. I don't think the site is trying to say "every time you want to use 'very dark', use 'bleak' instead"; it's just trying to give you alternatives that might -- but might not -- fit the usage you're looking for.
Beyond that, I do agree with the overall motive here: "very" is often a lazy intensifier, when we could be much more expressive in our speech or (especially) writing. For all its faults, the English language does offer decent breadth when it comes to synonyms of various intensity.
Open a few good books and essays, and see if there are adverbs, "very", passive voices, or other bad forms. These are reputable works written by careful and capable writers, and enjoyed by many readers. If they are all deemed wrong in the eyes of such advice, it's the advice that's wrong.
The valuable lesson is to actively think about the words you use, whether the text accurately convey what you mean, in the tone you desire, and is readable by your intended audience.
I'd say a good pair of thesaurus and dictionary is much better than this website. At least you got multiple candidates, an explanation of each, and get to choose the most appropriate one.
It's not saying "never ever ever ever use 'very'" or "if you want to use 'very', these are always the words you should use, no matter the context".
It's a gentle nudge to remind us that often "very" is something that we reach for because we are too lazy to come up with a more expressive word. The words the site comes up with won't be appropriate for every context where you'd otherwise just prefix a "very". That's fine. It's a starting point, not the end-all be-all. And sometimes a "very" ends up being the way to go. That's also fine.
Jesting aside, yes, I would echo this and a couple other comments: the point is to nudge yourself to think a bit more about diction, and spotting the word "very" is an easy trigger to do that.
Most replacements for very + something will be more precise, more evocative and just sound better. Of course, while more precise, they may be more inaccurate. You trade the shotgun of "very" for a sniper rifle, and that requires more careful aim.
(“Substitute X for Y” advice, OTOH, is usually just wrong.)