A Cemetery for Words

bytechhound

6.7K followers

Updated 5 years ago

Words are powerful. We know that. When we compile words together into sentences, we communicate. That's strong. But, some words serve to weaken your message and three words in particular, do this insidiously.

These three words deceive you into believing they help your message when they detract from it. You never needed these words, yet you've used them most of your life. You never will need these words again. Never! Therefore, my solution is to bury them forever.

Before I reveal the three words, I want you to prepare to wipe these words from your vocabulary. To do that, you'll need to set up a cemetery for these words in your brain. The region of this cemetery should be so remote, that it will take you months to travel there. It should be a place that is treacherous should you decide to visit it again. There are no paved roads, and flesh-eating beasts await any who dares to venture there.

You'll be burying the three words for which you'll be allowed a one-time pass to this region of the cemetery. After which, you'll have no means to return and if you try, it will be a perilous journey, at best.

You'll need to dig three graves, one for each word. You should dig deeper than any grave that's ever been dug. Graves are usually dug six feet under. I want you to go much deeper than that. You don't want any chance that the spirit of these three words will creep back into your brain. Since this is metaphoric, dig as deep as the core of the earth if you must. Once you have these graves dug, you will place the following words on the three tombstones:

Very Actually Really

The tombstones will contain no epitaths as these words don't deserve that recognition. Perhaps you feel this treatment of these words is harsh and you feel guilty banishing them in this manner. However, they never served you and did nothing but weaken your writing. They deserve the banishment, and then some.

Before you leave, make sure you cover the graves with the dirt you used to dig them. Pack down that dirt as hard as you can.

I can't remember the last time I used these words in my writing. I thought I would miss them, but I don't. I feel that my writing has strengthened by removing them and I have not needed to use them and you won't either. Your writing will become stronger from this act of burying these three words.

You may feel there are other words that can be buried in your metaphoric cemetery. But, if you stick with omitting these three words, you will forever be a better writer for doing so. You may start to think about other words and refrain from using them. That's good. We should think about our word choices. Feel free to bury as many words as you like. It's your brain, after all.

If you don't like the cemetary metaphor, go ahead and invent one that works for you. Perhaps, you can banish the three words to a distant planet such as Jupiter. Humans cannot live on that planet, so that is as good a metaphor as any.

If you curse me out for planting the seeds in your brain, so be it. However, if I get one person to never use those three words again, I believe I've done a good deed. You will see, the three words do not need a place in your writing or your speech. One day, you'll think back to this article and thank me for it.

You're welcome!