No Johnny English: a Mole is not a Vole
In the movie “Johnny English Re-born” the bumbling detective says to his assistant “Unbelievable: a vole in M17”, to which the reply is, “ A mole, Sir.”
Johnny’s response: “There’s a vole and a mole?”
Good writing and communication requires the right word at the right time, and while creative made-up expressions have their place, the words in a written piece should be precise and inclusive.
There’s no need to use highfalutin or high brow language for a widespread audience, which will include readers of many different reading abilities.
Good writing is also a continuous learning process, no matter how “natural” or experienced a writer is at writing.
The preciseness of writing cannot be over-estimated. Take for example, the expression below.
Constant fear gnaws away and drains a person of their energy, and even more serious repercussions may eventuate.
The above is quite different to:
Constant fear gnaws away and drains a person of their energy, and even more, serious repercussions may eventuate.
Here the key defining difference is the word “even”. The word “Even” as an adverb is used to emphasize something surprising or extreme. Take away the word “even” from both expressions, and read for meaning again.
Constant fear gnaws away and drains a person of their energy, and more serious repercussions may eventuate.
The above is quite different to:
Constant fear gnaws away and drains a person of their energy, and more, serious repercussions may eventuate.
You can see that the second phrase or expression doesn’t resonate as much as the first; it needs the adverb “even” as in “and even more” — as in furthermore or surprise, surprise … serious repercussions may eventuate.
Now, while the use of the word “Even” seems to rightfully or best fit the second expression, it’s use would denote that besides or in addition to constant fear gnawing away and draining a person of their energy, that furthermore, perhaps surprisingly or unexpectedly, other serious repercussions may eventuate.
But I was the writer of a certain communication, and my intention was to exactly convey my thoughts which I thought were transferred by the very first expression given as an example in this Story — duplicated below:
Constant fear gnaws away and drains a person of their energy, and even more serious repercussions may eventuate.
To me, the above means that furthermore there are more serious repercussions other than gnawing away and draining away a person’s energy, from constant fear.
Draining one’s energy is a serious result of fear, and or but or furthermore, there are other “effects” which are actually more serious (such as suicidal thoughts or harming another), according to me.
The use of the adverb “even” works here, I think. Try reading:
Constant fear gnaws away and drains a person of their energy, and furthermore, more serious repercussions may eventuate.
“Even” is replaced by “furthermore.”
But when “Even” is used as a bridging clause, as a compound saying (even more) i.e. placed together with “more” to mean “furthermore”, the “greater than” effect disappears.
Constant fear gnaws away and drains a person of their energy, and even more, serious repercussions may eventuate.
When originally or initially writing my expression, it was my intention to point out that (perhaps unexpectedly), MORE SERIOUS repercussions may eventuate. Gnawing away and draining energy is a serious thing itself but not as serious as more serious effects.
So you can see from this small example, what a difference there can be, with different punctuation and with alternative words.
Of course, I could just have written:
Constant fear gnaws away and drains a person of their energy, and more serious repercussions may eventuate.
The above does not include the adverb “even” at all.
Upon reflection or reviewing my original expression, and noting that what I originally had published in “In a Few Words” was changed by the Editor, to the 2nd phrase in this Story, thus loosing the sense of all results or effects being serious, with more serious effects possible; I have learned that using some words can cause ambiguity.
As I said, writing well is a continuous learning process, and some words have different meanings to different people.
From my own personal experience, I have decided that I will use the adverb “even” more sparsely from now on.
It seems that “Even more” is not a widely known term for “furthermore”.
“Even more” may come across as a less formal expression than “furthermore” but as writers, we need to cater for and include as many readers as we can. One way to do this, is to be careful when choosing our adverbs.
Over the years, I have consciously given more attention to weeding out redundant and lofty words, and now I will review ambiguous words, especially ambiguous redundant adverbs!
