The OFFICIAL 2018 Countdown Thread

The number of fishes that were in the net that Jesus told Simon to throw on the right side of the boat. John 21:11. It is a mysterious number because it does not have the properties of other literary or mystical numbers: 3, 7, 12, 144, 40 days/40 nights or 40 years, 10,000, etc. It's just random, maybe to give us something irrelevant to talk about?

148 reviews of a knife--just how much can be said? It shows the compulsion--addiction? obsession?--to post one's opinions about anything "because we can."

Irony intended.

very difficult--- hard
very rare--hard to find
very leaden--heavy, ominous, dull,
very soaring--soaring

Better writing avoids intensifiers; better to choose a single word to make the writing more direct. Some words don't need intensifiers or can be amplified by other imagery or phrasing in the rest of the sentence. So the better writer would replace "very soaring" with "soaring as fuck."  There are also words that are complete and it is wrong to modify them, like "unique" and "destroy."


The same goes for avoiding adverbs; one of my writing mentors would review something and say, "that's good. Now take out all the adverbs." That especially pertains to "clearly" "obviously" and "certainly."

Try never using "get" or "thing." There is usually a better word.

So, "He's obviously going to get that thing" is probably a sentence no one should write. Ever.

"He's VERY obviously going to VERY get that VERY thing."