Written by Martin Wiles

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We generally associate weasels with chickens. Weasels have ways of weaseling into chicken pens and coops to kill chickens or suck their eggs.

In writing, weasel words are words or phrases that creep into writing, leading to redundancy and wordiness. Since these are typically pet words or phrases used to make writing sound impressive, writers often use them without thinking. Thus, the writing appears whole—as does the egg the weasel has sucked dry—but it is not.

Redundancy is the practice of saying or writing the same thing someone has already said or written, using different phrasing or synonyms. Wordiness, on the other hand, is using more words than necessary to express what needs to be said or written.

At times, we may use the two terms interchangeably, and their definitions can overlap, as the examples that follow show.

Example: John plans to meet Susie at 10 a.m. in the morning.

The abbreviation a.m. means “in the morning,” so repeating the phrase “in the morning” is redundant.

Wordiness would be more in line with the following:

Let’s take into consideration the cost of hiring an editor.

The phrase “take into consideration” can be shortened to one word: consider. Often, ion-suffixed words are zombie nouns for which we can easily unearth a smothered verb.

Sharla Rae, in an excellent blog post “Put Your Flabby Writing on a Diet” (Writers in the Storm Blog), details some common redundancies. 

• Short minute – A minute is short.
• Rise up/lift up – If something rises, it’s going up.
• Dash quickly – To dash is to act quickly.
• Absolutely certain/sure – If it’s absolute, it’s certain. (Absolutely is my favorite almost-always unnecessary adverb that adds absolutely [okay, I couldn’t help it] nothing to a sentence.)
• Combined together/blended together – If we combine items, they are together.
• Clearly apparent – If it’s clear, it’s apparent.
• Appointed as – If appointed as, one is appointed.
• Fall down – If something falls, it goes down, not up.
• Exact same – Exact and same mean the same thing.
• Radiate out/expand out – If something radiates, it’s moving outward, so “out” is redundant.
• Floral bouquet – A bouquet typically refers to flowers.
• Respond back – A response is giving an answer or reaction “back.”
• Seek out – If one seeks, they go beyond/out to search
• Trace amount – Trace is a small amount, making “amount” redundant.
• Skip over – Skip is going “over” one thing to the next.
• Could possibly – If you could do something, then it’s a possibility.
• True facts – Facts are true, or they are not facts.

The following are some ways editors can examine writing for redundancies.

Search for Idioms and Cliches

Cliches are overused expressions, while idioms are expressions whose meaning cannot be determined by the words themselves. Example: He was as dead as a doornail.

Peruse the Pet Words and Phrases

Examples include very, really, actually, so, well, but, and absolutely.

Don’t Prop with Adverbs or Adjectives

Adverbs have their place, but not when used to prop up weak verbs. Example: squeal loudly. The same holds for adjectives added to nouns, where the adjective is already implied: yellow daffodils.

So, know those redundancies and help your writers root them out.