Wordiness and Redundancy

My first recollection of my oldest brother is of myself as a boy and he a man of twenty-five. He had come back to the town in which we were then living with the single, sole purpose of finding his mother and helping her.

• NO CHANGE

• with one foremost and primary purpose

• with the sole purpose

• with only one sole purpose

Still, Paul was as much an enthusiastic part of our home as though he belonged to it. He was happy in it, and the cause of his happiness was my mother, a woman of whom he was abundantly fond and loved.

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• childishly fond and held affection for

• intensely fond

• very fond, and also loved

I recall how my brother hung about her in the kitchen or wherever she happened to be, how enthusiastically Paul related all his goals for the future, and his intentions for the rest of his life.

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• and his plans for himself.

• and his decisions for his next phase.

• OMIT the underlined portion

Paul, in his desire to financially support her and her descendants, contributed regularly. He also sent home all his cast-off clothing to be made over for the younger ones.

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• sent money weekly.

• contributed money regularly.

• consistently sent money.

As I look back now and reminisce, I now realize quite clearly that of all the related members of my family, the only one who truly sympathized with my intellectual and artistic point of view was, strange as it may seem, this same Paul, my dearest older brother.

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• look back on my life,

• look back into my memories,

• reminisce and remember my life,

As I look back now and reminisce, I now realize quite clearly that of all the related members of my family, the only one who truly sympathized with my intellectual and artistic point of view was, strange as it may seem, this same Paul, my dearest older brother.

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• all the members of my family,

• all the family members related to me,

• all the relatives that are in my family,

Not that he was in any way fitted, intellectually or otherwise, to enjoy high forms of art and learning, nor that he understood, even in later years, what it was that I was attempting to do; he never did.

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• to enjoy and be entertained by

• to be amused and entertained by

• to engage in and enjoy

His world was that of the popular and well-loved music, the middle-class actor or comedian, and the middle-class comedy.

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• popular music that the masses loved,

• popular music

• music that was popular and well-liked,

From a personal perspective, —and this is said, in no lofty, condescending spirit, by me—Paul was entirely full of simple, middle-class romance...

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• As far as I’m concerned,

• In my opinion

• In my personal opinion,

Paul was entirely full of simple, middle-class romance, middle-class humor, middle-class tenderness, and middle-class grossness, all of which won me so completely and kept me so much his debtor that I should hesitate to try to acknowledge or explain all that he did for or meant to me.

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• so entirely and thoroughly

• moreover and utterly

• wholly to the point of completion