Expletive Constructions

Expletive Constructions Deleted

The bawdiness of the transcripts from the Watergate recordings may have popularized the phrase expletive deleted, but expletive originally meant "to fill," and when we talk about expletive constructions, we are referring more to words that act like sentence fillers than bad language. That being said, however, if writers use them frequently, expletive constructions will certainly make composition teachers curse!

So what are these filler phrases to delete from our writing?

There is, there are, here is, here are, it is, it was, it seems, it appears, etc.

Examples:

Expletive construction:
"There is room for you in the car."

More Concise construction:
"We have room for you in the car."

Note: we added a subject.

Expletive construction:
"It is important for you to be on time."

More Concise construction:
"You should be on time."

Note: Don't confuse the introductory it is/was with the pronoun form of it followed by a to be verb. To test the situation, we can look for the antecedent for it, and if one doesn't exist, then the phrase is an expletive construction.

Expletive construction:
"There are five boys in the family."

More Concise construction:
"Five boys are in the family"

Note: we merely eliminated there and shifted the verb to the more common place.

Expletive construction:
"There are several solutions to the question."

More Concise construction:
Several solutions exist to the question.

Note: exist can be a good substitution for the expletive construction.

Read more about expletive constructions here.