a large entry
OK, but here's another thing. This doesn't count as Grammar Naziism because it's not about being "correct" but rather having any kind of an ear for prose, or a competent editor.
It might be my imagination, but it seems like bad, lazy authors love to overuse the word large.
Large was about the only adjective employed in the low-rent Hunger Games knockoff The Testing, and large was all but ground to dust in one of the five worst novels I've ever read, Ready Player Two. Ernest Cline uses it 72 times in 365 pages. Once every five pages might not sound like a lot, but once you're aware of it, you'll wince every time he needlessly describes something as "large." Perhaps the dumbest example is "a large nightclub." Poetry.
No, you know what? It's not my imagination. I don't care what you say. There is something about the word "large" that enables lazy writing. I'm not saying don't use it. But adjectives and adverbs should be sprinkled with a light touch. A well-chosen verb or noun is at least partially self-describing, which is why you needn't say things like "run quickly" or "large mansion."
It's true that even good authors sometimes get stuck on a word or phrase, without realizing it. Within the space of a few pages, they might repeat that word or phrase several times, probably unconsciously. I imagine they latch onto it as useful and then--in some kind of writer's trance, story spilling onto the page faster than they can keep up with--don't realize they're using that word over and over. It happens! But this is not the same kind of laziness I am talking about with large.
My hypothesis is that large, while straightforward in meaning, is also vague enough to be tacked onto anything that is not specifically tiny or regular-sized. A large room, a large desk, a large tree. Perhaps some authors, not trusting their nouns by themselves, feel the need to prop them up with some kind of descriptor, and large is always close at hand, impossible to misuse. And no, I can't name another overused, general-purpose adjective. I don't notice authors describing far too many things as seemly or extant or brown. There is just something about large that makes hacks think they're Hemingway.
As further evidence, I recently unearthed a story I wrote in eighth or ninth grade, and guess what adjective popped up a ludicrous number of times: you guessed it, large!
It might be my imagination, but it seems like bad, lazy authors love to overuse the word large.
Large was about the only adjective employed in the low-rent Hunger Games knockoff The Testing, and large was all but ground to dust in one of the five worst novels I've ever read, Ready Player Two. Ernest Cline uses it 72 times in 365 pages. Once every five pages might not sound like a lot, but once you're aware of it, you'll wince every time he needlessly describes something as "large." Perhaps the dumbest example is "a large nightclub." Poetry.
No, you know what? It's not my imagination. I don't care what you say. There is something about the word "large" that enables lazy writing. I'm not saying don't use it. But adjectives and adverbs should be sprinkled with a light touch. A well-chosen verb or noun is at least partially self-describing, which is why you needn't say things like "run quickly" or "large mansion."
It's true that even good authors sometimes get stuck on a word or phrase, without realizing it. Within the space of a few pages, they might repeat that word or phrase several times, probably unconsciously. I imagine they latch onto it as useful and then--in some kind of writer's trance, story spilling onto the page faster than they can keep up with--don't realize they're using that word over and over. It happens! But this is not the same kind of laziness I am talking about with large.
My hypothesis is that large, while straightforward in meaning, is also vague enough to be tacked onto anything that is not specifically tiny or regular-sized. A large room, a large desk, a large tree. Perhaps some authors, not trusting their nouns by themselves, feel the need to prop them up with some kind of descriptor, and large is always close at hand, impossible to misuse. And no, I can't name another overused, general-purpose adjective. I don't notice authors describing far too many things as seemly or extant or brown. There is just something about large that makes hacks think they're Hemingway.
As further evidence, I recently unearthed a story I wrote in eighth or ninth grade, and guess what adjective popped up a ludicrous number of times: you guessed it, large!