Intensifiers Part 2: Replace and Specify

Originally published by Wayne.

Part 2 of 3.

As legal writers, we might be tempted to use intensifiers to bolster our points—to persuade. Yet often, the better advice is to avoid the intensifier. Last week I suggested dropping the intensifier. Here are two more suggestions.

Replace it.
With some thought, you can delete an intensifier-plus-verb and intensifier-plus-noun constructions and replace them with a single, forceful word. So—

• completely wrong > inaccurate, incorrect, mistaken, unsound
• extremely smart > brilliant
• highly capable > accomplished, proficient
• quickly went > hustled, sped, rushed
• very sure > certain

Again, develop an editorial sense. Replacements don’t always work; sometimes the single-word option is loaded. If instead of very bad you write terrible or dreadful, you might interject undesired subjectivity or emotion.

Specify.
Rather than rely on a vague intensifier, legal writers can use details to emphasize. Here’s a classic example:

2. It was very hot.

2a. It was 103 degrees in the shade.

Here’s another example of specifying (with two more persuasion techniques: a dash and a sentence that ends with key words):

3. The transaction at issue obviously did not take place at Eason’s residence.

3a. City detectives set up a controlled purchase with a cooperating defendant at Jay’s Auto Body. It was there that Eason handed over a bag of methamphetamine—not at Eason’s residence.

As you can see, specifying takes more words, and so, as with all writing, exercise editorial judgment. Weigh the longer, specific description against the shorter, vaguer (and weaker) one.

Next week: Part 3 will literally knock your socks off.

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