That

“That" is a useful word for giving more clarity to writing, but the presence of too many of these words , is not desirable in any creative piece of writing.

How to reduce using them?

·         When "that" is used to describe something, we can always move the description to before the term and make a more powerful image.

Example:

Instead of: Kerala was nothing but hills that flowed green.

Use: Kerala was nothing but flowing green hills.

·         In reported speech. We can omit it without affecting the meaning or grammar.

Example:

Instead of: He said that he was tired.

Use: He said he was tired.

When is it compulsory to use the word that?

Time element: When a time element is linked to the verb of attribution, the conjunction “that” must be used. For example:

·         The publisher announced that on May 5 the book will be released. 

Here if we omit the word “that” the meaning would not be clear.

So we have to clearly understand whether the presence of the word is absolutely necessary in a given sentence and if not we can omit using it.

 This post is a part of the APRIL A-Z Challenge