I Don’t Hate Dandelions

In all honesty, I don’t. You can cook their roots, create salads from their leaves, and ferment them to make wine. Some coffee substitutes contain dandelion roots; and I’m sure smart people have devised many other uses for these prolific yellow flowers.

However, too many dandelions can smother your lawn, just as too many adverbs (like just) can smother your writing.

You probably know how to root out ly adverbs (like probably in this sentence). But adverb weeds can hide where you least expect to find them.

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Make Your Readers Speechless for the Right Reasons

You want to render booklovers speechless by your inspired writing but not by using the word speechless so often you exasperate them.

This post will provide more than 200 ways to replace speechless with different words.

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What Are Redundancies?

These nuisances are superfluous words or phrases also known as pleonasms. Rather than augment writing, they slow action scenes and increase word count — without adding constructive details.

Remember as you attempt this quiz, that one of the meanings of redundant is “unnecessary.”

About The Quiz

This quiz, the forty-first in its series, offers ten sentences containing redundancies, and ten suggested solutions.

They are edited examples from books, news media, television shows, and overheard conversations.

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Why Frowner?

Recently, someone asked me, “What would you call someone who frowns a lot?”

It was an informal discussion with a fellow writer in a Starbucks, and I volunteered a few words; but the question stuck with me. Hence, this post.

Caution: You may find story prompts in the words that follow.

The Initial Approach

Consider why someone might frown:

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