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How Can You Avoid Sounding Pompous In Your Writing?

Use these 12 words sparingly or you’ll look stuffy

Janice Harayda
4 min readMay 26, 2022

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Grammar Fail Giraffe Meme / Credit: quickmeme.com

By day I do freelance editing for a magazine that publishes print and online articles by four generations of writers, ranging from older members of Gen Z to boomers. In that job I’ve noticed a paradox:Gen Z writers often sound more…

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Janice Harayda

Critic, novelist, award-winning journalist. Former book editor of the Plain Dealer and book columnist for Glamour. Words in NYT, WSJ, and other major media.