Dreyer’s English suggests that writers try to go a week without using any of these words:
very
rather
really
quite
in fact
just (in the sense of merely)
pretty (as in “pretty tedious”)
so (in the “extremely” sense)
of course
surely
that said
actually
As a writer, I’ve always found “very” the easiest word to overuse.
As an editor, I also looked for long words that could be short words, almost always changing “to participate in” to “to take part in.”
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