Authors and the unusual words they like to overuse

[Cartoonacy]

@epbrown01

Probably due to the world of self-publishing being light on proof-readers, I’ve been reading an entertaining sci-fi series where the author misuses “distain” in every single book, multiple times. He clearly means disdain from the context, but since distain is an actual word spellcheck doesn’t catch it, nor does he. What’s odd is that he uses the term so often - I can’t think of a book where it comes up nearly as much, so he’s messing up a word he actually seems to like.

He might not be so wrong, according to this site: http://kddidit.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/word-confusion-disdain-distain-distrain/

[Tim_R.Mortiss]

John Norman, of *Gor *fame, likes to use “regard” whenever someone is looking at something. As in, “he regarded me through the eye slits of his helmet, as if trying to decide how best to kill me.”

[Tim_R.Mortiss]

Regarding Lovecraft, I once compiled a list of “Lovecraftian” words to sprinkle though eldritch missives of my own, so that they could be festooned with his own brand of malignant verity:

• eldritch
• missive
• dread
• unspeakable
• shades (as in ghosts)
• inchoate
• portent (especially as in “ill portent”)
• unseemly
• tattered
• squalid
• gnawing
• utter
• ichor
• disquiet
• mandibles
• provenance
• fetid
• accursed
• aeons
• learned, refinement
• belies
• degraded, lineages
• squamous, leathery fiends
• lest (“lest your gnawing ichor……”)
• portal
• rent (as in, “rent asunder”)
• sigil, glyph
• mythos
• enmity

[RealityChuck]

The word is hardly unusual, and his use of it is usually considered good practice, but Raymond Carver was inordinately fond of the word “said.” He used it every time a character spoke, even when it wasn’t necessary to identify the speaker. For example, you might see something like this:

“Hi,” he said.
"Hello, " she said.
“How are you?” he said.
“Fine,” she said.
"Nice day, " he said.
“A bit too warm for me,” she said.
Etc.

[AuntiePam]

@Tim_R.Mortiss

John Norman, of *Gor *fame, likes to use “regard” whenever someone is looking at something. As in, “he regarded me through the eye slits of his helmet, as if trying to decide how best to kill me.”

Not an unusual word but in the Malazan books no one simply walks – they stride. It’s a fantasy thing, I think. I hardly ever see it elsewhere.

[Rick_Kitchen]

Harry Turtledove loves to say “You aren’t wrong.” Everybody uses it.

He also came up with “flabbling” on his own, I think.

[Morbo]

“Reacher said nothing.”

-Every Lee Child book, x50

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Chimera

Squamous (see above) was the first one that came to my mind.

Mentioning it 43 times is a Woomik and scores 17 points.

[koeeoaddi]

@Morbo

“Reacher said nothing.”

-Every Lee Child book, x50

Nelson DeMille does this too. Turns the audiobooks into a dialogue drinking game.

“He said nothing.”
“She nodded.”
“I didn’t reply.”
“She informed me…”

[Mahaloth]

J.K. Rowling uses the word “shrilly” way too much.

[Ulf_the_Unwashed]

Erle Stanley Gardner used the word “commencing” a great deal in his Perry Mason novels, IIRC, and I think I do…

“I’m commencing to think your client is not as guilty as she appears.”
That kind of thing.

[vontsira]

Assorted Turtledove stuff – I’m a fan, though a sometimes reluctant one…

@CalMeacham

L. Sprague de Camp liked to use the word “Futter” in place of “Fuck”. It looks as it it’s a bastardization of French foutre, which Shakespeare famously used in one of his Henry plays (IV 1? IV 2? V? They all run together) De Camp undoubtedly originally used it because he could get away with it in his puritanical pulp magazines, but he kept on using it even after standards had relaxed. I think he liked to exotic sound of it.

Harry Turtledove – an admirer of de Camp, I gather – borrows and makes much use of “futter”, in his Darkness novel series, of which I am among the apparently relatively few lovers. The Darkness universe has a medieval-type feel to it, so the word seems to “fit” there.

@MrAtoz

In Harry Turtledove’s books, tanks never explode, ignite, burn, or anything else. They always “brew up.”

@Rick_Kitchen

Harry Turtledove loves to say “You aren’t wrong.” Everybody uses it.

He also seems fond of, “That makes more sense than I wish it did” – an expression which I for one, like.

@Rick_Kitchen

He also came up with “flabbling” on his own, I think.

Lovely word, IMO – if it never existed in our time-line, it should have done.

[Ulf_the_Unwashed]

And while we’re on the subject of mysteries, Agatha Christie was extremely fond of the word “one” as a vague pronoun, often in the phrase “one mustn’t…”

I know that use of “one” is a) much more common in Christie’s day than it is these days and b) much more a Briticism than an Americanism. So it’s likely that she’s not as alone in this as i remember. But when I was devouring Christie novels years back I remember the “one” statements in her dialogue being thick as alligators. One mustn’t assume…one mustn’t accept…one mustn’t believe…One could occasionally vary one’s use of pronoun, lest one’s readers gently toss one’s book aside.

I liked her books anyway.

[vontsira]

@Morbo

“Reacher said nothing.”

-Every Lee Child book, x50

@koeeoaddi

Nelson DeMille does this too. Turns the audiobooks into a dialogue drinking game.

“He said nothing.”
“She nodded.”
“I didn’t reply.”
“She informed me…”

Another Tom Clancy thing (for more than one reason, I gave up on Clancy after The Teeth of the Tiger); " ‘ABCXYZ’ , he didn’t say." Over and over and over again…

[Superdude]

@RealityChuck

The word is hardly unusual, and his use of it is usually considered good practice, but Raymond Carver was inordinately fond of the word “said.” He used it every time a character spoke, even when it wasn’t necessary to identify the speaker. For example, you might see something like this:

“Hi,” he said.
"Hello, " she said.
“How are you?” he said.
“Fine,” she said.
"Nice day, " he said.
“A bit too warm for me,” she said.
Etc.

I always admired this in Elmore Leonard’s books. I can’t think of many conversations right off the top of my head that didn’t have that sort of interaction. It always struck me as being perfect pacing for the dialogue. It had the staccato, rapid back-and-forth that you’d imagine those characters having.

In fact, he once listed his “Ten Rules of Writing:”

"1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”

[Captain_Amazing]

@Shoeless

Do made-up words count? Because Neal Stephenson definitely over-used “phant’sy” in The Baroque Cycle.

Real word. Just obsolete spelling.

[bldysabba]

@Ulf_the_Unwashed

And while we’re on the subject of mysteries, Agatha Christie was extremely fond of the word “one” as a vague pronoun, often in the phrase “one mustn’t…”

I know that use of “one” is a) much more common in Christie’s day than it is these days and b) much more a Briticism than an Americanism. So it’s likely that she’s not as alone in this as i remember. But when I was devouring Christie novels years back I remember the “one” statements in her dialogue being thick as alligators. One mustn’t assume…one mustn’t accept…one mustn’t believe…One could occasionally vary one’s use of pronoun, lest one’s readers gently toss one’s book aside.

I liked her books anyway.

I think that’s American taste speaking. I don’t find ‘one’ used as a pronoun to be off putting.

[Ulf_the_Unwashed]

Well, the thread is about overuse, which I think describes what Christie did. My memory could be off, but it seemed as though any time she COULD write “one” she did; rather than saying “people mustn’t” or “nobody should” or “it would be a bad idea to…” nope, just “one mustn’t.” also, I think, “one ought,” “one might,” and so on.

For the time and place I don’t find it especially off putting either, but overuse, I believe, was a problem.

[Nzinga_Seated]

I will add to the Stephen King comments…when I was a kid, I noticed that he used ‘gaping maw’ an awful lot, and every color red was ‘crimson’.

[AppallingGael]

@Ulf_the_Unwashed

Erle Stanley Gardner used the word “commencing” a great deal in his Perry Mason novels, IIRC, and I think I do…

“I’m commencing to think your client is not as guilty as she appears.”
That kind of thing.

The Case of the Continual Commencing.

@Ulf_the_Unwashed

And while we’re on the subject of mysteries, Agatha Christie was extremely fond of the word “one” as a vague pronoun, often in the phrase “one mustn’t…”

Norman Mailer also liked it. “One was pleased when one was complimented on one’s The Naked and the Dead”; that sort of thing.