Verbose — When Words Get in the Way of What You’re Saying

When did you last read something and wish it were longer? And when did you last wish someone would just get to the point?

The second experience is far more common. And the word for what's getting in the way is verbose.

Verbose means using or expressed in more words than are needed. It comes from the Latin verbosus — from verbum, word. Wordy. Word-heavy. Full of words in a way that isn't full of meaning. A verbose explanation. A verbose email. A verbose speaker who takes the long route to every destination.

Verbose is gentler than prolix — it describes the condition more than it criticizes the person. Someone can be verbose in a single email and sharp everywhere else. It's a tendency, not a character flaw. But it's a tendency worth examining, because verbosity has a real cost.

The cost is attention. Attention is the most limited currency there is, and when you spend your reader's or listener's attention on words that don't carry weight, you've depleted something that wasn't infinite to begin with. The verbose speaker trains their audience to half-listen. The verbose writer trains their reader to skim. By the time the important thing arrives, the attention that would have received it properly has been spent on filler.

Why do we become verbose? Usually for one of a few reasons. We're thinking out loud — the verbosity is a processing mechanism, not a communication strategy. We're anxious about being misunderstood, so we over-explain. We're trying to fill silence or time. We're using words as a substitute for confidence — if we just say more, maybe it will feel like enough.

But here's the paradox: the verbose approach achieves the opposite of what it intends. Less trust, not more. Less authority, not more. The person who speaks ten precise words owns the room in a way the person who speaks a hundred approximate ones never will.

The fix is simple and hard: finish your thought, then stop. Resist the impulse to add the clarifying sentence that wasn't needed. Resist the restating. Say the thing. Trust that it landed. And if it didn't — wait for the question. The question will tell you what actually needed more.

Here's your question: Where in your communication — email, conversation, presentation, social media — do you tend toward verbosity? And what do you think you're protecting yourself from by adding those extra words?