I have a way for you to use fewer words in your sentences:
Stop beginning stories with “What happened was” and stop describing what someone is doing with, “What he did was.” I have heard several variations of these introductory phrases and they are all just as useless. I sometimes wonder how these grammatical fads catch on. But mostly, I just hate on them.
“What he did was he jumped over the fence to avoid the cops and as he was hurdling it, what happened was his shoe lace got caught on a wire and he slammed face first into the ground.”
What that is is it’s an example of wasting my time by assuming that I won’t know that “he jumped” is what he did, or that “his shoe lace got caught” is what happened.
What I want to know is I want to know why people speak like this. Because it sucks.
AM I RIGHT?
