not very good

In an article on camera phones in this month's Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows—whose resume is as impressive as they come—writes,

On many, the resolution is not very good.

I often hear this phrase—"not very good"—in conversation, but in written form there's no excuse for it. It's both prolix and nondescript.

Why not say "inferior" or "poor"? Better yet, go for specifics rather than generalities: e.g., "grainy" or "fuzzy."

uhhh

"Bush's global-democracy, uhhh, crusade, is yet another triumph of spin over substance."

Why "uhhh" and not just "uh"?

Democracy, the Morning After [Time]

Sloppy Language

"[W]hen members of congress pilloried executives of Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems at a hearing about their China operations on Wednesday, there were three important people who couldn't attend."

The way this is written, it is unclear which took place on Wednesday: the China operations or the hearing?

It would have been clearer to replace "on Wednesday" with "at a hearing on Wednesday."

China's Cyberdissidents and the Yahoos at Yahoo [NYT]