Writing Tips

Expletives

Having just recently marked the 25th anniversary of the Watergate burglary, it seems appropriate to address the subject of expletives. (No, not the profanities that were excised from transcripts of Nixon's White House tapes, but words such as it in the preceding sentence.)

Expletive Means "Filler"
In English syntax, expletive is the term used to describe syllables, words, or phrases that "fill a vacancy" without adding meaning to a text. It should be obvious how the term came to be applied to the profanities in the infamous Nixon tapes, but the expletive used in this sentence may be less obvious to anyone but a dedicated grammarian.

In the preceding sentence, it is again used as an expletive. In the first clause, the word it fills the place of the subject, which has been deferred until after the verb. If recast in the more typical order, the first clause would read:

How the term came to be applied to the profanities in the infamous Nixon tapes should be obvious, but ...

No Fillers, 100% Pure "Meat"
While expletives have a place in acceptable syntax, overuse of expletives damages texts by weakening and de-emphasizing the points being made. In technical writing, the most overused expletives are "there" and "it", as shown in the examples that follow. The recast version of each sentence immediately follows the weaker attempt.

Weak: There are significant trade-offs to be made between runtime performance and data security.

Recast: The contention between runtime performance and data security requires significant trade-offs.


Weak: It is my experience that Product X outperforms Product Y in a "live" environment.

Recast: In my experience, Product X outperforms Product Y in a "live" environment.

Fillers for Flavour
Expletives are much more common in poetry, where they are frequently used to "fill" the meter. For example:

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.