Informal expressions

Expressions that are informal or even colloquial may be too informal for formal academic or business writing or speaking contexts. These are not necessarily wrong, but are dispreferred or considered less appropriate for such types of writing or discourse, and more formal expressions are preferred.

1 General characteristics

Informal expressions, compared to their more formal counterparts, may be distinguished by the following characteristics.

Informal expressions	Formal expressions	Informal cf. formal examples
Words that are more general or less precise in meaning	Terms with more specific, precise meaning or scope	people vs. Canadians, voters, participants, etc.
Shorter, more common words (often from the Old Germanic or Old French parts of the English lexicon)	Longer, multi-syllabic terms from Latin, Greek, modern French, or other languages	sick vs. infection
Common, high-frequency words, e.g., high school level vocabulary	Less common, low-frequency vocabulary; specialized vocabulary of certain fields; college or post-graduate level vocabulary	machine vs. laparoscope, EKG, eye tracker
Words that have an emotional, biased, or negative tone	Neutral sounding vocabulary	grammar Nazi vs. pedantic, prescriptivist
Words or phrases that are more metaphorical	More transparent, neutral and precise terminology	don't beat around the bush vs. equivocate, prevaricate
Contractions	Full forms	can't vs. cannot

Some common examples of informal expressions include the following.

Colloquial and slang vocabulary

• That's cool. Just chock it up to experience.
• They're in cahoots with the mafia.

Regional or dialect expressions

• Tell me it ain't so.
• We gotta schlep this couch up the stairs. ("schlep" = New York slang)
• Oy! There's some bloke making off with a TV!

Expletives or taboo expressions

• Bloody hell, it's bloody cold out there.
• I don't give a damn anymore. Let's just go to the pub and get pissed.

Sexist, racist, or discriminatory language

It should be pretty obvious that language that even implies negative attitudes toward women, minorities, ethnic groups, members of the LGBT community, etc. are inappropriate.

Gender-biased language

This includes terms that use masculine words for people who could have female members.

• Postman → letter carrier, postal worker
• Businessman → business people
• Policeman → police officer

Likewise for possessive adjectives:

• Each student must bring his identification. → his/her identification; OR: All students must bring their identification.

2 Sentence types

Some informal types of sentences can be made more formal.

Using question and answer format in an essay

• This leads to the following questions. Do aliens fly around the Earth? Are they really spying on us? Are they really kidnapping people? The evidence says "no."
• Can they still be considered to have social value? Yes, they can certainly still be appreciated by society.

Using quotation style and quoted expressions to present and develop points.

• Some people on the Internet keep asking questions like "Are aliens spying on us?" or "Are they really kidnapping people?" The evidence says "no."

Overuse of quotations

Sometimes quotations are used when they are not really necessary, especially common quotations. To avoid sounding too informal, they can be deleted if they are not really necessary; otherwise, they can be paraphrased without direct quotations.

• Can they still be considered to have social value? Well, as Shakespeare said, "A rose by any other name is still a rose," so yes, they can still be appreciated by society.

Idioms, clichés (common, overused expressions) and aphorisms (common phrases that convey popular sentiments).

• He's older than dirt.
• I wasn’t born yesterday.
• There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
• He's driving her up the wall.

3 Nouns and pronouns

In many contexts, these terms might be vague or too non-specific, and would be better if replaced by a more specific noun, which will depend on the context.

colloquial	more formal
person, people (often vague)	individual, Canadians, researchers, subjects, voters, males, participants ...
man	males, (male) participants / subjects, male voters, etc.
part	portion, section, sector, segment, aspect
thing	object, device, item, situation, circumstance, subject, element ...
way (e.g., a way to do something)	manner, method, means, methodology, instrument, aspect
women	females, (female) participants, etc.

Likewise, the following indefinite pronouns can be replaced with more specific nouns.

• someone, anyone → an individual, a Canadian, a researcher, a particular subject, one particular voter, certain participants
• something, anything → an object, a device, an item, a subject, an element
• somewhere, anywhere → a certain location, some unknown village, the city of Brighton
• everywhere → all locations, all counties of Alberta
• everyone → all the citizens of Liverpool, a majority of residents in Cleveland
• everything → all atoms in the universe

4 Verbs

Second person

The second person you in writing sounds very informal or personal, and it is generally avoided in all forms of academic writing. Likewise, second-person verb forms are avoided, including commands like Do not do this.

First person

The first person I and we can sound informal, especially the singular I and me. These are generally avoided in formal writing, except when the authors need to comment directly, e.g., when explaining their rationale for doing something. First person is rarely used in science writing, occasionally in social science writing, and somewhat more often in humanities writing, such as in literature studies. If first person is really needed, we is better than I.

Standard contractions

It is preferable to write out full forms instead of contractions

• don't → do not
• can't → can not, cannot
• we've → we have

Colloquial contractions

It is better to avoid colloquial contractions such as these.

• ain't
• doncha
• innit? (UK English)

4.1 Common verbs

Many common verbs that are frequently used in English may have fairly general meanings, or may sound informal. This can include more idiomatic verbal expressions They can be substituted as follows.

Common verb	More specific
free	release
give the go ahead	authorize, permit
let	allow, permit, grant
need to	require, is required
show	demonstrate, illustrate, portray, indicate, exhibit

4.2 Light verbs

These are common, everyday verbs that are rather non-specific in meaning. These are distinguished from other verbs, in that (1) they are the first verbs learned in the language; (2) they have a great variety of meanings, and thus can be less specific semantically; and (3) they are often used in idioms, set expressions, and collocational expressions. In academic writing, many times it is better if these can be replaced with more specific verbs, and the choice will depend on the context. However, in set expressions like 'get married' it may be difficult to replace them.

Light verb	More specific
be	exist, occur, equal, consist of, comprise (of), typify, appear, seem, tend...
do	perform, execute, carry out, implement, manage...
get	obtain, acquire, come into possession (of), capture
give	provide, yield, produce, lead to, impart...
go, run, come	proceed, journey, travel, progress, exceed...
have	possess, contain, exhibit ... In descriptive phrases, have can be replaced with with, e.g. "A patient who had the flu" → "A patient with the flu"
make	create, produce, facilitate...
set, put	place, position, arrange...

4.3 Phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs

When possible, phrasal verbs should be replaced with more formal verbs (often, verbs of Latin origin) with more specific meanings. For example, many ESL students use find out when a better expression for formal writing would be discover, determine, ascertain. Since phrasal verbs often have many meanings, the choice will depend on the context. The same applies to some VERB + PREPOSITION combinations formed with a fairly common verb.

Phrasal / prep. verb	More specific
be about, it's about	it concerns; in regard to; this deals with, handles, addresses, explicates
blow up	inflate, explode
deal with	handle, manage, address
fill in	substitute, inform, complete
find out	find, discover, ascertain, determine, decide on, assess
get in touch with	contact, establish contact with
get over	recover
go against	contradict, oppose
go around	circumvent, circumnavigate, sidestep, ignore, rotate, gyrate, orbit, circumduct, twist, revolve, meander, ramble
go down	decrease, diminish, abate
go out	exit, diminish, leave, depart, extinguish, cease, die, dim, expire, subside, decline, dwindle, recede, quit, retire, withdraw
go up	increase, arise
leave out	omit, delete
look at	examine, observe
make up	fabricate, create; comprise, consist (of)
mix up	mix, confuse
point out	indicate, index, refer to
put off	postpone, delay, procrastinate
put up (with)	tolerate, endure
rack up	accumulate
ring up	call, telephone
set up	establish
show up	arrive, appear
stand for	represent; tolerate
take out	excise, remove, clear, exclude, omit, extirpate, destroy
think about	consider, deliberate

5 Adjectives, adverbials, & other modifiers

In many contexts, these terms might be vague or too non-specific, and would be better if replaced by a more specific word, which will depend on the context.

colloquial	more formal
bad	negative, pejorative, poor, ineffective, adverse...
big, huge	large, significant, enormous, incredible, gargantuan, gigantic, massive
a bit, a little bit	slightly, somewhat
good	sufficient, excellent, optimal, ideal, studious, prime, positive, effective, beneficial
kind of, sort of	somewhat, slightly
a lot of, lots of	many, numerous, a large number / amount of
tiny	small, very small, minute

6 Transitional / connector expressions

colloquial	more formal
anyway	This is used informally for changing topics; in formal writing, simply starting a sentence with a full noun topic, or starting a new paragraph, will often suffice.
besides	More formal alternatives are ‘in addition to’ or ‘furthermore’ - e.g., “In addition to these factors, ...”.
first of all	first
like	(is) similar to; for example, as, such as (As a connector, like can seem slightly colloquial. However, as a conjunction before verb phrases, or as a preposition, like is generally fine in contemporary formal English)
nowadays	currently, recently
whether or not	whether

Here are some examples of the more informal like, and more formal counterparts. Here, the informal like is used as a conjunction.

• Don't do like what she did. → Do not do as she has done.
• Activities like smoking and drinking are not allowed here. → Activities such as smoking and drinking are not allowed here.

Some examples of like that are perfectly fine, particularly when it is used as a preposition.

• We don't want any characters like him around.
• She looks just like me.

7 See also

1. Easily confused verbs such as say, tell, talk