Adjectives answer “Which?” — and writers sometimes do too much to assure their readers of a particular idea or person or thing that’s meant. For example, “They ate their morning breakfast,” forgets ‘breakfast’ already implies morning.
Though — what would it mean to embrace the writer’s ability to do too much — and conversely make the word-in-error not be extra? In other words, when could ‘morning breakfast’ be a choice?
- If in a short story, a character will attend an afternoon breakfast.
- If, say in a poem, contrast is being proposed between kinds of theoretical breakfasts.
- Perhaps in an essay if someone is making an argument, in which the term is defined for particular meaning versus, say, a suggested improvement.
What adjective-in-error could you turn into a choice? I’d love to see your examples in the comments.
Read more about the importance of the writing ecosystem here.
Todd Wellman 