I’m going to have to go with Doug Hofstadter and “droll”. Every time he uses it, it annoys me. I can’t even put my finger on why, exactly, but he uses it way too much.
Tom Clancy: MP5K and SSN. <VBG>
Laurel K. Hamilton and things spilling. Hair spills, light spills, clothing spills… In the first few Vampire Hunter books, everything spills but drinks.
Also, Anne McCafferey uses cacaphony a lot. In one book, it turns up about halfway through, and then it’s just like every 10 pages. Freaking annoying.
Cicero used way too many qu- words, but that’s just my opinion. 
Tenebras
Poe was fond of melancholy.
Because of the times when Hemingway wrote, he used the euphemism “fug” for sexual intercourse. It still startled many people to see even a semblance of the four-letter word in print, especially one that was a best seller. That was one of the reasons some of his earlier books were banned in many areas. It was one of the things that gave him the “bad boy image” that he enjoyed.
One time at a get together thrown by his publisher (Scribners) another author, Margaret Mead, was in attendance. The relatively young Hemingway had long admired the way the elerly anthropologist had lived among the natives of Samoa and asked to be introduced to her.
When the introductions were finished, the non-fiction grand dame repeated Hemingway’s name a couple of times as if trying to place it and finally said, “Oh yes, now I remember, you’re the young man who doesn’t know how to spell ‘fuck’.”
King seems to have a fondness for the words Chromium or Chromic (never crome). Can’t ya just say shiny, fer christs sake?
In High Fidelity, Nick Hornby included the line “How did a guy like me become the number one lover man in his particular postal district?” It’s in the movie as well.
In his next book, Hornby proceeded to drive the joke into the ground. At least three or four times, the main character makes reference to “our particular postal district.” Someone who had never read his other books would end up wondering why Londoners had this bizarre postal district obsession.
Er…my memory may be fuzzy, but isn’t it Norman Mailer you have in mind not Hemingway?
In Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho he kept using the phrase “nameless dread.” That phrase sounded familiar to me, though - I think possibly some other author has used it repeatedly. Maybe Jay McInerney.
In Ruth Rendell’s books, every article of clothing she describes is “fawn.” I don’t know why, but it drives me batty, especially when I have myderty marathons and I see the darn word over and over and over…
I am told the memory starts to go at a certain age. Apparently I hit that age this morning. You are 100 percent correct ndorward. Thanks
James A. Michener – Acidulous appears several times too many in Hawaii, less often in his other novels.
HP Lovecraft: Don’t forget non-euclidean. I think we’re three words short of being able to reconstruct one of his stories.
Simon R. Green loves “(soandsuch soandsuch) didn’t/doesn’t/don’t give a damn.”
you might see it three times a page. I guess he’s really stingy with his “damn”…
William Burroughs must have loved the word “aftosa”. Every time one of his characters starts spinning a yarn about outrageous sexual exploits, “aftosa” is mentioned. It is a cow disease, I believe, and not sexually transmitted.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle frequently used the verb “ejaculate” (ejaculated, ejaculation) to mean “exclaim” in his many Sherlock Holmes stories. My mind still maintains its junior high school perception, so…
That was my first thought when I saw this thread. She used that word so gratuitously that it soured me on her books (not that they weren’t already beginning to suck eggs).
Hunter S. Thompson and “f*ck.”
Stephen King is also fond of the construction “friends and neighbors”, as in “Now, believe me when I tell you this, friends and neighbors…” And he likes to use brand names of products. It’s never just a vacuum cleaner, it’s an Electrolux. (Or whatever.)
All I know is that if the chairs in the Harry Potter movie are not noticably “squashy” then it won’t be following the spirit of all four books.
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michael