“The adverb is the enemy of the verb. If you need one, you chose the wrong verb. You put ‘slowly’ after ‘walked’ when you should have said ‘trudged’ or strolled’ or ‘ambled.'”
Every word must be a necessary element in the message. … She was less tolerant of “useless verbage,” of those words that could be deleted with no effect on the meaning. “Cornstarch words” she called them, … “Like barnacles on the bottom of a boat. They slow down the sentence, reduce its force, and make you sound like an English major.”
Professor Gracie Ray, News Writing, University of Oklahoma (c. 1946-1948). In Tony Hillerman (2001). Seldom Disappointed: A Memoir, New, York: HarpeCollins, p. 171.
Professor Ray’s rules follow the same logic as T. Ernest Newland’s comments that creativity extends what is known. It requires an informed person to create. (I wonder how that statement fits Michael at the Gorilla Foundation?)
Marc Gold also followed the same rule with his Try Another Way program that applies Zeaman and House’s visual discrimination learning hierarchy. Gold shows (teaches in minutes) people with IQ scores in the middle 30s to graduate students and practicing professionals how to complete complex tasks.
aLEAP applies this logic to analyzing learning efficiency by filtering out cornstarch words in lessons.