I’ve heard so many people misuse this word, it just baffles me. Well, actually no, it doesn’t. I think a lot of people use it to sound educated. Well, it doesn’t sound educated if you misuse the word. You sound pretentious.
So, in the interest of my sanity, here goes. First, the pronunciation. According to my beloved American Heritage dictionary, the first acceptable pronunciation is verb-e-age. The second is verb-age. I hate the second; there’s a letter there that just begs to be pronounced.
Anyway, the word means 1. too many words; wordy and 2. “the manner in which something is expressed: software verbiage.” Too often, I’ve heard it used to describe anything written. The best way to describe anything written is words, composition, essay, article, any number of things but not verbiage. I worked with one writer who used the word constantly, and I wanted to smack him. Don’t make me want to smack you.
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