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Elegant Variation describes the concept of finding different ways to express the same thing in text and is used here to avoid repetition in dialogue and gestural content.

A specific syntactical structure is used which concisely represents all the different wording and gestural annotation options available in order to communicate a given intent.

Within this structure, one can specify synonyms at the single word or phrasal level and give optional inclusions.

Elegant variation is a particularly powerful tool when it comes to avoiding repetition in common utterances, for example, greetings and expressing a misunderstanding.

Syntax

The following structure shows elegant variation being used to generate different ways of forming a greeting:

{Hi | Hello | Hey} {there | }. {Its {very | really} nice to {see | meet} you. | } {How are you? | }

Different wording options are contained within curly braces and are separated by a vertical bar. For example, to begin the greeting one of ‘Hello’, ‘Hi’, or ‘Hey’ will be chosen randomly.

‘There’ is optionally inclusive, which is denoted by a vertical bar, followed by a blank space - thus, either ‘there’ or ‘nothing’ will be selected. Similarly, the adjectives ‘very’ and ‘really’, and the second and third sentences as a whole, are also optional.

Some of the variations that this greeting will produce are:

• Hello. It’s really nice to see you. How are you?

• Hi there. How are you?

• Hey. It’s nice to meet you.

• Hello.