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# The Waste of Word
- URL: https://www.kevinmeyer.com/the-waste-of-word/
- Published: 2009-08-22T04:06:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-08T17:34:16.000Z
- Author: Kevin Meyer
- Tags: A Little Different, #Migrated-1752356847400, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-07-12 14:48

Us lean geeks seem to find waste at every turn and in every crevice, but this was a new one for me. A couple days ago I told you about [faux precision](https://www.kevinmeyer.com/fun-with-statistics-veneer-of-verisimilitude-edition/), and one snippet of text that I copied and pasted from an e-dictionary in Microsoft Word format was:

> *ver-i-si-mil-i-tude \[ver-uh-si-mil-i-tood\] - something, as an assertion, having merely the appearance of truth.*

Seems simple enough, right? A few bits and bytes, probably taking up the space of spec of dust on a typical hard drive. If that.

Well, not exactly. When the formatting blew up, I took a look at the underlying code, and this is what Microsoft Word uses to describe those few letters:

<P class=MsoNormal><font face=Arial color=black size=3><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">ver</span></font><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">⋅</span></font><font face=Arial color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">i</span></font><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">⋅</span></font><font face=Arial color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">si</span></font><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">⋅</span></font><font face=Arial color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">mil</span></font><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">⋅</span></font><font face=Arial color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">i</span></font><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans Unicode'">⋅</span></font><font face=Arial color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">tude</span></font><font face="Arial Unicode MS" color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Unicode MS'"> </span></font><font face=Arial color=black><span style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">\[ver-uh-si-mil-i-tood\]<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></span></font></P> <P class=MsoNormal><font face=Arial color=black size=3><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">2\. something, as an assertion, having merely the appearance of truth.<o:p></o:p></span></font></P> 

And now you know why you need larger and larger electronic storage...