More on expletives |
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"It" and "there" added to the verb "to be" are phrases to avoid for their weakness and their wordiness. Grammarians, in their inimitable way, have deemed these expressions expletives. Remember, "Expletive deleted!" Perhaps you could just remember these expressions as throat-clearers; they do no more for a sentence. They are easy to spot; avoid them.
Business writers commonly use three kinds of expletives: wordy hedges, expletives of necessity, and emphatic expletives. Wordy hedges: A business writer, I am sorry to report, must do a good deal of hedging. You should be on the lookout for places that you hedge unnecessarily or for places that you use two or three hedges where one would do. But given that you must hedge sometimes, a major job in editing is to make your hedges concise.
Here the hedge can be sneaked into the verb form ("may"). At other times you may be able to use a word such as "possibly" or "probably." But whatever you do, try to keep your hedges concise and to make sure that your hedge does not occupy your entire verb structure. Expletives of necessity: These include such phrases as "it is necessary that," "it is important that," "it is essential that," and "it is imperative that." Though these can sometimes seem absolutely necessary, concentrate on the word "must" or sometimes the softer word, "should."
Emphatic expletives: These expressions are not really emphatic because they take up too much space with too few ideas; yet, writers use them to try to gain emphasis. Such expressions as "it is true that," "it is obvious that," "it is clear that," and "it is doubtless that" fall into this category. Remove the expletive to gain real emphasis, which will come from concise and precise statement.
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