>>>American sports announcers abuse the heck out of the word "situation." For instance, "That brings up a third down situation." Do you mean, "It's third down?"?!?!?!
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>>Of course, much of what we're talking about here is just the general attitude that more words are better. When I was teaching writing, I had to work hard to convince my students that fewer words make better writing.
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>Was it Voltaire who apologized in a post scriptum that he didn't have the time to write shorter?

Mark Twain, I think.

Tamar