Verbosity or verboseness is speech or writing that uses more words than necessary.
The opposite of verbosity is
plain language
Plain language is writing designed to ensure the reader understands as quickly, easily, and completely as possible. Plain language strives to be easy to read, understand, and use. It avoids verbose, convoluted language and jargon. In many countri ...
. Some teachers, including the author of ''
The Elements of Style
''The Elements of Style'' is an American English writing style guide in numerous editions. The original was written by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, and published by Harcourt in 1920, comprising eight "elementary rules of usage", ten "elementary p ...
'', warn against verbosity; similarly
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
and
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
, among others, famously avoid it. Synonyms include wordiness, verbiage, prolixity, grandiloquence, garrulousness, expatiation, logorrhea, sesquipedalianism, and overwriting.
Etymology and synonyms
The word ''verbosity'' comes from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''verbosus'', "wordy". There are many other English words that also refer to the use of excessive words.
''Prolixity'' comes from Latin ''prolixus'', "extended". ''Prolixity'' can also be used to refer to the length of a
monologue
In theatre, a monologue (from el, μονόλογος, from μόνος ''mónos'', "alone, solitary" and λόγος ''lógos'', "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes a ...
or speech, especially a formal address such as a lawyer's
oral argument
Oral arguments are spoken presentations to a judge or appellate court by a lawyer (or parties when representing themselves) of the legal reasons why they should prevail. Oral argument at the appellate level accompanies written briefs, which also ad ...
.
''Grandiloquence'' is complex speech or writing judged to be pompous or bombastic
diction
Diction ( la, dictionem (nom. ), "a saying, expression, word"), in its original meaning, is a writer's or speaker's distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression in a poem or story.Crannell (1997) ''Glossary'', p. 406 In its common meanin ...
. It is a combination of the Latin words ''grandis'' ("great") and ''loqui'' ("to speak").
''Logorrhea'' or ''logorrhoea'' (from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
λογόρροια, ''logorrhoia'', "
word
A word is a basic element of language that carries an semantics, objective or pragmatics, practical semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of w ...
-
flux
Flux describes any effect that appears to pass or travel (whether it actually moves or not) through a surface or substance. Flux is a concept in applied mathematics and vector calculus which has many applications to physics. For transport ph ...
") is an excessive flow of words. It is often used
pejorative
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
ly to describe prose that is hard to understand because it is needlessly complicated or uses excessive jargon.
''Sesquipedalianism'' is a linguistic style that involves the use of long words. Roman poet
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
coined the phrase ''sesquipedalia verba'' in his
Ars Poetica. It is a
compound
Compound may refer to:
Architecture and built environments
* Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall
** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struct ...
of ''sesqui'', "one and a half", and ''pes'', "
foot
The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made ...
", a reference to
meter
The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...
(''not'' words a foot long). The earliest recorded usage in English of ''sesquipedalian'' is in 1656, and of ''sesquipedalianism'', 1863.
''Garrulous'' comes from Latin ''garrulus'', "talkative", a form of the verb ''garrīre'', "to chatter". The adjective may describe a person who is excessively talkative, especially about trivial matters, or a speech that is excessively wordy or diffuse
The noun ''expatiation'' and the verb ''expatiate'' come from Latin ''expatiātus'', past participle from ''spatiārī'', "to wander". They refer to enlarging a discourse, text, or description.
''Overwriting'' is a simple compound of the English prefix "
over-" ("excessive") and "writing", and as the name suggests, means using extra words that add little value. One rhetoric professor described it as "a wordy writing style characterized by excessive detail, needless repetition, overwrought figures of speech, and/or convoluted sentence structures." Another writer cited "meaningless intensifiers", "adjectival & adverbial verbosity", "long conjunctions and subordinators", and "repetition and needless information" as common traps that the non-native writers of English the author studied fell into.
Scientific jargon
An essay intentionally filled with "logorrhea" that mixed physics concepts with sociological concepts in a nonsensical way was published by physics professor
Alan Sokal
Alan David Sokal (; born January 24, 1955) is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is a critic of postmo ...
in a journal (''
Social Text
''Social Text'' is an academic journal published by Duke University Press. Since its inception by an independent editorial collective in 1979, ''Social Text'' has addressed a wide range of social and cultural phenomena, covering questions of gende ...
'') as a
scholarly publishing sting
This is a list of scholarly publishing " sting operations" such as the Sokal affair. These are nonsense papers that were accepted by an academic journal or academic conference; the list does not include cases of scientific misconduct. The intent o ...
. The episode became known as the
Sokal Affair
The Sokal affair, also called the Sokal hoax, was a demonstrative scholarly publishing sting, scholarly hoax performed by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University and University College London. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article t ...
.
[The Sokal Affair](_blank)
/ref>
The term is sometimes also applied to unnecessarily wordy speech in general; this is more usually referred to as ''prolixity''. Some people defend the use of additional words as idiom
An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...
atic, a matter of artistic preference, or helpful in explaining complex ideas or messages.
Examples
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...
, the 29th President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
, was notably verbose even in his era. A Democratic leader, William Gibbs McAdoo
William Gibbs McAdoo Jr.McAdoo is variously differentiated from family members of the same name:
* Dr. William Gibbs McAdoo (1820–1894) – sometimes called "I" or "Senior"
* William Gibbs McAdoo (1863–1941) – sometimes called "II" or "Ju ...
, described Harding's speeches as "an army of pompous phrases moving across the landscape in search of an idea."
The ''Michigan Law Review
The ''Michigan Law Review'' is an American law review and the flagship law journal of the University of Michigan Law School.
History
The ''Michigan Law Review'' was established in 1902, after Gustavus Ohlinger, a student in the Law Department ...
'' published a 229-page parody of postmodern writing titled "Pomobabble: Postmodern Newspeak and Constitutional 'Meaning' for the Uninitiated". The article consists of complicated and context-sensitive self-referencing narratives. The text is peppered with a number of parenthetical citations and asides, which is supposed to mock the cluttered style of postmodern writing.
In ''The King's English
''The King's English'' is a book on English usage and grammar. It was written by the brothers Henry Watson Fowler and Francis George Fowler and published in 1906; it thus predates by twenty years ''Modern English Usage'', which was written by Hen ...
'', Fowler gives a passage from ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' as an example of verbosity: "''The Emperor'' received yesterday and to-day General Baron von Beck.... It may therefore be assumed with some confidence that the terms of a feasible solution are maturing themselves in ''His Majesty's'' mind and may form the basis of further negotiations with Hungarian party leaders when ''the Monarch'' goes again to Budapest." Fowler objected to this passage because ''The Emperor'', ''His Majesty'', and ''the Monarch'' all refer to the same person: "the effect", he pointed out in ''Modern English Usage'', " is to set readers wondering what the significance of the change is, only to conclude that there is none." Fowler would go on to call this phenomenon "Elegant variation
Elegant variation is a writer's substitution of "one word for another for the sake of variety". The term was introduced in 1906 by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler in ''The King's English''. In their meaning of the term, they focus particularly on ...
" in his later style guides (see below).
Style advice
The ancient Greek philosopher Callimachus
Callimachus (; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works in a wide variety ...
is quoted as saying "Big book, big evil" (μέγα βιβλίον μέγα κακόν, ''mega biblion, mega kakon''), rejecting the epic
Epic commonly refers to:
* Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation
* Epic film, a genre of film with heroic elements
Epic or EPIC may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and medi ...
style of poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
in favor of his own.
Many style guides advise against excessive verbosity. While it may be rhetorically useful verbose parts in communications are sometimes referred to as "fluff" or "fuzz". For instance, William Strunk
William Strunk Jr. (July 1, 1869 – September 26, 1946) was an American professor of English at Cornell University and author of ''The Elements of Style'' (1918). After revision and enlargement by his former student E. B. White, it became a highly ...
, an American professor of English advised in 1918 to "Use the active voice: Put statements in positive form; Omit needless words."
In ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage
''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' (1926), by Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933), is a style guide to British English usage, pronunciation, and writing. Covering topics such as plurals and literary technique, distinctions among like words ...
'' (1926) Henry Watson Fowler
Henry Watson Fowler (10 March 1858 – 26 December 1933) was an English schoolmaster, lexicographer and commentator on the usage of the English language. He is notable for both ''A Dictionary of Modern English Usage'' and his work on the ''Con ...
says, "It is the second-rate writers, those intent rather on expressing themselves prettily than on conveying their meaning clearly, & still more those whose notions of style are based on a few misleading rules of thumb, that are chiefly open to the allurements of elegant variation," Fowler's term for the over-use of synonym
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...
s. Contrary to Fowler's criticism of several words being used to name the same thing in English prose
Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...
, in many other languages, including French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, it might be thought to be a good writing style.
An inquiry into the 2005 London bombings
The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system during the mo ...
found that verbosity can be dangerous if used by emergency services. It can lead to delay that could cost lives.
A 2005 study from the psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
department of Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
found that using long and obscure words does not make people seem more intelligent. Dr. Daniel M. Oppenheimer did research which showed that students rated short, concise texts as being written by the most intelligent authors. But those who used long words or complex font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
types were seen as less intelligent.
In contrast to advice against verbosity, some editors and style experts suggest that maxims such as "omit needless words" are unhelpful. It may be unclear which words are unnecessary, or where advice against prolixity may harm writing. In some cases a degree of repetition and redundancy, or use of figurative language and long or complex sentences can have positive effects on style or communicative effect.
In nonfiction writing, experts suggest that a balance must be struck between, on one hand removing excessive elements that do not aid communication, versus unduly terse style on the other hand, which fails to make its meaning clear. Law professor Neil Andrews suggests that in the writing of legal decisions, for example, "A balance must be struck between judgments which are inadequately reasoned and too terse, cryptic and formulaic, and decisions (especially when multiple judgments are given by an appellate court) which are too long and difficult to unravel." In such cases attention should be paid to the argument underlying a conclusion, so that the language used strikes a balance between simplicity and precision.
A number of writers advise against excessive verbosity in fiction. For example, Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
(1835–1910) wrote "generally, the fewer the words that fully communicate or evoke the intended ideas and feelings, the more effective the communication." Similarly Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...
(1899–1961), the 1954 Nobel laureate
The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...
for literature, defended his concise style against a charge by William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of ...
that he "had never been known to use a word that might send the reader to the dictionary." Hemingway responded by saying, "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use."
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
mocked logorrhea in "Politics and the English Language
"Politics and the English Language" (1946) is an essay by George Orwell that criticised the "ugly and inaccurate" written English of his time and examined the connection between political orthodoxies and the debasement of language.
The essay ...
" (1946) by taking verse (9:11) from the book of Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes (; hbo, קֹהֶלֶת, Qōheleṯ, grc, Ἐκκλησιαστής, Ekklēsiastēs) is one of the Ketuvim ("Writings") of the Hebrew Bible and part of the Wisdom literature of the Christian Old Testament. The title commonly use ...
in the King James Version
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...
of the Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
:
and rewriting it as
In contrast, though, some authors warn against pursuing concise writing for its own sake. Literary critic Sven Birkerts
Sven Birkerts (born 21 September 1951) is an American essayist and literary critic. He is best known for his book ''The Gutenberg Elegies'' (1994), which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other tec ...
, for instance, notes that authors striving to reduce verbosity might produce prose that is unclear in its message or dry in style. "There's no vivid world where every character speaks in one-line, three-word sentences," he notes. There is a danger that the avoidance of prolixity can produce writing that feels unnatural or sterile.
Physicist Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superflu ...
has spoken out against verbosity in scientific writing.
Wordiness is common in informal or playful conversation, lyrics, and comedy.
See also
* Bloviation
Bloviation is a style of empty, pompous, political speech that originated in Ohio and was used by US President Warren G. Harding, who described it as "the art of speaking for as long as the occasion warrants, and saying nothing". His opponent, W ...
, a style of empty, pompous political speech
* Bullshit bingo
Buzzword bingo, also known as bullshit bingo, is a bingo-style game where participants prepare bingo cards with buzzwords and tick them off when they are uttered during an event, such as a meeting or speech. The goal of the game is to tick off a ...
* '' Cantinflear''
*
* Elaboration
Elaboration (from Latin ''ex-'' "out" + ''laborare'' "to labor") is the act of adding more information to existing information to create a more complex, emergent whole. Elaboration is the variant of development implementation: creating new str ...
* Gift of the gab
The Blarney Stone ( ga, Cloch na Blarnan) is a block of Carboniferous limestone built into the battlements of Blarney Castle, Blarney, about from Cork, Ireland. According to legend, kissing the stone endows the kisser with ''the gift of the g ...
* Glittering generality
A glittering generality or glowing generality is an emotionally appealing phrase so closely associated with highly valued concepts and beliefs that it carries conviction without supporting information or reason. Such highly valued concepts attract ...
* Gobbledygook
Gibberish, also called jibber-jabber or gobbledygook, is speech that is (or appears to be) nonsense. It may include speech sounds that are not actual words, pseudowords, or language games and specialized jargon that seems nonsensical to outsider ...
, nonsensical speech
* List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English
This list contains Germanic elements of the English language which have a close corresponding Latinate form. The correspondence is semantic—in most cases these words are not cognates, but in some cases they are doublets, i.e., ultimately deri ...
* Logorrhea (psychology)
In psychology, logorrhea or logorrhoea (from Ancient Greek λόγος ''logos'' "word" and ῥέω ''rheo'' "to flow") is a communication disorder that causes excessive wordiness and repetitiveness, which can cause incoherency. Logorrhea is somet ...
* Obfuscation
Obfuscation is the obscuring of the intended meaning of communication by making the message difficult to understand, usually with confusing and ambiguous language. The obfuscation might be either unintentional or intentional (although intent u ...
, intentionally confusing wording to confuse people
* Pleonasm
Pleonasm (; , ) is redundancy in linguistic expression, such as "black darkness" or "burning fire". It is a manifestation of tautology by traditional rhetorical criteria and might be considered a fault of style. Pleonasm may also be used for em ...
, use of more words than is necessary for expression
* Readability
Readability is the ease with which a reader can understand a written text. In natural language, the readability of text depends on its content (the complexity of its vocabulary and syntax) and its presentation (such as typographic aspects that a ...
* Redundancy (linguistics)
In linguistics, redundancy refers to information that is expressed more than once.
Examples of redundancies include multiple agreement features in morphology, multiple features distinguishing phonemes in phonology, or the use of multiple words t ...
* Tachylalia Tachylalia or tachylogia is extremely rapid speech. Tachylalia by itself is not considered a speech disorder. Tachylalia occurs in many clutterers and many people who have speech disorders.
Tachylalia is a generic term for speaking fast, and does ...
, extremely rapid speech
References
{{Reflist, 30em
Grammar
Phraseology
Rhetoric
Semantics
Language varieties and styles
Literary terminology
Style (fiction)
Writing