# Authors' Pet Words **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 27, 2001, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-pet-words/84017 "2001-09-27T00:44:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2001, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-pet-words/84017/61 "2001-10-22T21:10:26Z")
James Herriot: “Bloody” ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2001, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-pet-words/84017/62 "2001-10-22T22:45:25Z")
After flying this weekend on both Friday & Sunday, with nothing more to entertain me during the flights & the long waits at the terminal, aside from the hope that I might be ‘randomly selected for further interrogation and a full body cavity search’, than an anthology of Shelley’s works, I noticed some things about his writing. Besides the convoluted, if not absolutely tortured constructions similar to the above sentence, he makes excessive use of ‘hoary’. I guess that makes him a ‘hoary’ whore. (Whatever visions you may now have of actual hoary whores I am not responsible for. I put quote marks there, see?). ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2001, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-pet-words/84017/63 "2001-10-23T12:27:25Z")
Not an author, but…the team leader in my first job used the phrase “bits and bobs” ad nauseum. The day before she left to get married, I lost count when she hit double figures. Used to really freak me out. I always meant to ask her about it, but I was nervous she’d come up with some weird response, e.g. _I’ve never used that phrase in my life._ Here’s an interesting _deliberate_ one. In Donald Westlake’s book **The Hot Rock** , he uses “said” to describe every utterance by every character. E.g. " ‘Can I help you?’ said the guard. ‘Afghanistan banana stand,’ said Dortmunder." Even to the extent of ‘Foom’ said a noise. Westlake - a skilled wordsmith, IMHO - doesn’t use this device in any other book. ---
**Author:** ![Zaphod\_Beeblebrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/0ea827/32.png) [@Zaphod\_Beeblebrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zaphod_Beeblebrox)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2001, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-pet-words/84017/64 "2001-10-23T12:30:42Z")
Philip K. Dick: “psychotic” or any other word related to it. ---
**Author:** ![KeithB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/48db29/32.png) [@KeithB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KeithB)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2001, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-pet-words/84017/65 "2001-10-23T14:40:34Z")
Cristopher Robin, in Milne’s Pooh books always says things “carelessly”, as in: “Silly old Bear!” he said carelessly. Does anyone know just what inflection that would involve? ---
**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-pet-words/84017/66 "2002-10-15T12:56:00Z")
I dug up this old thread because I’m now reading Lovecraft and wanted to see if “Cyclopean” had made it in. Sure enough, it has. In the anthology I’m reading, he uses it three times on one page. Before this I read “Frankenstein” and someone is “quitting” something on just about every page. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-pet-words/84017.md?page=3)