Is this Word Cruft?

When someone says "pretty much always" or "just about everyone", I interpret it as "almost always/everyone", rather than "literally always/everyone". This means that just axing the offending Word Cruft without anything else might change the meaning of the sentence.

I just saw a case where the phrase "pretty much all of the original cast" was turned into "all of the original cast". So while it used to say that there were only a few returning characters, but after cleanup it said that there were literally zero returning characters.

With that said... are "pretty much" and "just about" really so much worse that "most" and "almost" that we need to eradicate them on sight? Sure, it's one word longer, but the TV Tropes servers aren't so tight on storage space that we need to make every example as short as possible.

I found examples of Tsundere with type labels at Characters.Beyblade Metal Fusion Main Characters, but I've already removed both of them. Thoughts?

Just a question, are these word cruft

Characters.Trails Series Rean Schwarzer

• Blade Lock: Engages in this with Kurt in his bonding event in Cold Steel III. And in Reverie, he engages in this with Matteus Vander.Vander, and ends up losing while the latter was wielding his BFS with one hand.

YMMV.The Legend Of Zelda Tears Of The Kingdom

• Annoying Video Game Helper: Due to the way their abilities are implemented, the sage avatars can be this because of a combination of being difficult to activate when you want to use their abilities, and simultaneously easy to activate by mistake when you don't want to. It's not uncommon to find yourself chasing after one you want to use during a battle, or accidentally activating Tulin or Yunobo when trying to collect items, either blowing them off a ledge or turning the ingredients you were trying to harvest into less useful cooked versions. They also tend to clutter your field of view once you have all five, and trying to use the one you actually want to with a full party can be just as frustrating. They can be dismissed at will, but because they are so useful in combat (and out of it, in Tulin's case) you will seldom want to except for as a self-imposed challenge.

(I hid this a while back but was unhidden since there some context, but I decide to ask her for clarification)

Just to clarify, in quite a few Awesome Music subpages, I've seen this kind of scenario:

• Before "word cruft" was removed: [Title], it [does X] (i.e. "The Song of Awesome, it's a frantic and energetic piece").
• After "word cruft" was removed: [Title] [does X] (i.e. "The Song of Awesome is a frantic and energetic piece").
• Edit Reason: Formatting [Title], it [does X] instead of [Title] [does X] is Word Cruft.

I know Word Cruft is frowned upon, but isn't this...a little pedantic? It's literally one word, a single syllable, and only a couple of letters. You'd almost think the wiki was on a budget and we were getting charged for every word, or something. Plus, this is in the Awesome Music namespace, which has always had issues with zero context examples, weblinks (that often don't work) in lieu of context, and even Word Cruft far more noticeable than a superfluous use of the word "it", so it really seems like nitpicking for the sake of it.

Edited by UFOYeah on Oct 9th 2023 at 12:57:50 PM

Technically it's word cruft since there are unnecessary words. But I wouldn't say that it's super problematic. If I was cleaning up examples around it I'd probably fix it if I noticed it, but moreso for awkward sentence structure. It's still an incredibly minor issue but I'm fine with nitpicky edits - as long as it doesn't turn into an edit war.

This was recently added to YMMV.Mario Kart 8:

• Let’s face it, even if you hadn’t seen the Prefix Leak or didn’t know it was in Tour, you knew Wii Rainbow Road would be the final track of the Booster Course Pass, so it wasn’t even a slight surprise upon its reveal.

While it's not wrong, as others (including myself) were indeed able to predict the course, it just comes of as crufty to me. What should I do?

Edited by ChillyBeanBAM on Nov 12th 2023 at 2:31:03 PM

Found this on YMMV.Super Mario Bros Wonder

• And if you thought that was bad, you haven't seen anything yet. Say hello to their big brother in the Special World, Fluff-Puff-Peaks Special; Climb to the Beat. Where do we begin with this level? For starters, the platforming is now more precise. To be expected, right? If you fall, you can just go back up a pipe and try again, right? Wrong. Instakill poison starts to rise up from the bottom after you grab the Wonder Flower. And the platforming is already incredibly precise! Mess up even once, and it's all the way back to the beginning. Even for a Special World level, this level is maliciously difficult, the only level that's harder being The Final-Final Test; Badge Marathon. The music of this level will probably haunt your dreams by the time you finish.

It was much more crufty but it was rewritten by the same trope after I sent notifiers about it. Unfortunately, it still suffers from word cruft and has an indention issue. Any possible rewrite?

Edited by Ayumi-chan on Nov 14th 2023 at 7:04:53 PM

Regarding the level harder than Fluff-Fluff Peaks Special: Climb to the Beat, The Final-Final Test: Badge Marathon is actually a Brutal Bonus Level, not The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.

By the way, Fluff-Fluff-Peaks Special; Climb to the Beat should be written as Fluff-Fluff Peaks Special: Climb to the Beat.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Nov 14th 2023 at 11:41:42 AM

Attempted to rewrite , how does it look?

• Fluff-Fluff Peaks Special: Climb to the Beat gives players a nasty spike. The platforming now more precise and after getting the Wonder Flower, poison starts rising. One wrong move and the poison would instantly kill your character, forcing you to start from the beginning.

Douple post, but is "In light of" word cruft?

It depends on the context.

What about this? (From Characters.Trails Series Crossbell Special Support Section)

• Honorary True Companion: Subverted; while it's never stated in-story that Rixia has become an official member of the Special Support Section, she lent her assistance to them on a daily basis during the Erebonian occupation. Reverie also includes her in the SSS Beach Vacation minigame, and the in-game notebook puts her character note entries in the SSS portion instead of the Crossbell allies portion. In light of all of this, the "honorary" part of the trope is firmly eliminated.

Note: The last part was added while back, after I attempted to fix it, because I don't recognize bad grammar in my writings unless someone points it out.

That doesn't look like word cruft. Removing that part of the sentence would make it grammatically incorrect. It would be possible to rewrite the example to not use "In light of all this", but the goal of TV Tropes isn't to write the shortest examples possible.

Since no one objected, I replaced the indented Difficulty Spike on YMMV.Super Mario Bros Wonder with my rewrite.

From YMMV.The Marvels 2023

• WTH, Costuming Department?: Dar-Benn's appearance in this film has been subject to criticism by fans, as she looks almost nothing like her comic counterpart. Most notably, she lacks the Accusers' hood and her blue skin (to be fair, the first movie established that there are light and dark-skinned Kree, but Dar-Ben, like Ronan, is blue Kree in the comics).

Is the bolded part Word Cruft?

Is "Case in point" word cruft?

Like in this example from YMMV.My New Boss Is Goofy

• Realism-Induced Horror: While the series is a Work Com with no shortage of funny or heartwarming moments, Momose's life in his last job is always portrayed in a horrifying light, especially since such horrible and abusive bosses can actually exist in real life. Case in point, each time a flashback is shown if how Momose is treated by his boss, it's never Played for Laughs.

Is this example from At Least I Admit It feel word crufty (cause it does to me)?

• Tales of Berseria: If there's one leg the protagonists have to stand on in comparison to the Abbey, it's that they're well-aware that they're not particularly good people, with Magilou calling them a "band of villains" and Velvet in particular being a bit too self-aware for her own good. The Abbey, by contrast, are a group of delusional zealots who would sooner turn a little girl into a monster than admit they're capable of any wrongdoing, with even Eleanor being a huge Hypocrite before her much-needed Heel Realization.

Yeah, both of those feel padded.

Here are some rewrites for both of them:

• Realism-Induced Horror: While the series is mostly a light-hearted Work Com, any scene involving Momose's former are never played for comedy as both the bosses behavior and Momose's life with him mirror real-life abuses of power in the workplace.

• Tales of Berseria: While the protagonists have done some questionable things, they're well-aware that they're not particularly good people, with Magilou calling them a "band of villains" and Velvet in particular being a bit too self-aware for her own good. This is in contrast to the Abbey who would sooner turn a little girl into a monster than admit they're capable of any wrongdoing, with even Eleanor being a huge Hypocrite before her much-needed Heel Realization.

Double post but is this something like this (bolded parts) word cruft?

• Asshole Victim: Quite a few:
  • Blah Blah Blah
  • Blah Blah Blah

• Everyone Has Standards: Bob may be a jackass but there are few he considers going to far:
  • Blah Blah Blah
  • Blah Blah Blah

I did ask something like that here.

So is this word cruft (bolded)

From Characters.Fate Zero Servants

• Pet the Dog:Although he's for the most part a massive douchebag, Gil does have his nobler moments as well:
  • He is suspiciously nice when conversing with Kirei, has what can best be described as a Vitriolic Best Buds friendship with Rider and occasionally does something helpful but claims it was for his own reasons. He honors Iskander's last command to Waver to live on by sparing the latter's life, despite personally killing Iskander.
  • Earlier he knocks Berserker out of the sky when he was about to go ham with a gatling gun so Saber could go on and blast Caster's monster.
  • He also soothes Saber somewhat after she receives a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech from Rider, telling her that her nobility and selflessness are worthy traits of a king. Coming from him, though, Saber takes it more as Your Approval Fills Me with Shame, especially because he takes the opportunity to make another unwanted pass at her and remarks that he finds her suffering amusing.
  • Subverted during his attempted wedding; at first, it looks as though he's wised up to Kiritsugu applying his Command Seal on Saber, and is indignant about this violation of her free will ("damn you to hell", to quote the man himself) but then, well, he reveals his anger stems from less pleasant reasons.
  • After defeating Rider he asks if Waver will challenge him to avenge Rider. Waver refuses because Rider wanted him to live, after which Gilgamesh praises his loyalty and leaves without doing anything, despite it being customary to kill Masters in a Holy Grail War.

That's not word cruft because it provides important context to the trope, by explaining that Gilgamesh is not just a Nice Guy doing nice guy stuff. It would be hard to implement that part of the trope into every sub-bullet, so it's better to just have it taken care of at the top of the example.

Edited by Zuxtron on Jan 31st 2024 at 11:10:30 AM