This may be all right in the States, but it wouldn't do in
Britain. Here we believe in being fully informed if possible, or
else well informed, but very informed? Surely not. I suppose the
theory behind this convention is that the word "very" is meant
to qualify an adjective, not a verb, and you can no more say
"very informed" than you can say "very shot at" or "very
killed"; but it collapses as soon as you look at it. After all,
one can be very depressed or frightened or upset, and these are
verbs too. So what is it about informed that makes us reluctant
to put a very in front of it? The answer must be that inform has
for most of its career been a pretty muscular verb, by which I
mean that it has been about people doing something really
purposeful: first, giving form to something, or impressing
something on it, or moulding it, then doing the same to people.
Teaching them, in fact. In the late Middle Ages, when the word
was already being used in this way, teaching and indoctrination
were the same thing. The i