LOL. It's funny. I try to beat around the bush throughout my entire essays, just so I can hit the word count and avoid the topic at hand. And then my teacher comments about how wonderfully 'straight forward' I am. I'm one of her favorite students. But she's married to her dogs idk, she has their barking set as her ring tone. Incompetent might not be the right word for her.
*chuckle*
But this does show that you could remove those four words and their associated commas and the post would deliver the same message. It would just be a very brief and uninflected one, far less interesting to read. The commas give the writing the flow of speech and the words give it a personal tone.
Wise men at their end know dark is right.
You know what's deeee licious?
Peanut butter on graham crackers. It shouldn't be good, but it totally is.
Oh, sort of on that same topic. "Generally speaking" can often be done without, since it's usually used with a quantity of time anyway. As in, "Generally speaking, I wouldn't do that most of the time." I use stuff like this to buff word counts, but not often, because it's often unnecessary.
Originally Posted by Pesky Persian