Today is my last day of retraining to work in the customer care department. Part of our training has been spent "shadowing" more experienced representatives. Because of the time of day our class is run, we don't get to listen to the cream of the crop. Most of them are newbies fresh off the street.
The other day a customer complained that the representative had apologized (with the same phrase) fifteen times during the call. He exaggerated. It was only eight. I couldn't help but count. I'm sick of hearing the words certainly and definitely. Not only are they evil adverbs, the bain of decent writers everywhere but after hearing them about fifty times each per day you just want to scream.
That of course has reminded me of an important writing tip. Constantly repeated words and phrases don't sound any better in writing than they do in speech. They could well sound worse. There are of course exceptions but in general find other ways to say the same thing if need be.
We all do it. We all have favorite words and phrases. Getting rid of them is an important part of editing your work.
Not picking on anyone here by the way. This was wholy inspired by listening to badly managed customer care calls.
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