proselint false alarm on "very"

False alarm:

"And there he was: the very same man who, just two days ago, had given John the watch".

Mar 06 '16 01:03 suchow

Another: "Im not sure this suggestion is very good."

Mar 07 '16 11:03 MichalPaszkiewicz

:+1: This false negative amused me when running proselint against an academic paper.

Mar 07 '16 12:03 dashed

Technically, neither of those are strictly false alarms. The rule as stated by Twain is to replace every instance of "very" with "damn" on the grounds that it would possibly be edited out. I would agree that "damn" may not be appropriate in replacements for either of these two sentences, but both would be fine without the word "very". "I'm not sure this suggestion is good." "And there he was: the same man who, just two days ago, had given John the watch". Thus, it is not obviously a false positive. However, the check for "obviously" would produce false alarms on this and the previous sentence.

Mar 07 '16 23:03 mpacer

It might not be obvious to some; but an explicit suggestion to remove the word 'very' and/or reword the sentence might be a better approach.

Mar 07 '16 23:03 dashed