# Authors with particular linguistic habits or tics, like often repeated or misused words or phrases **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [October 16, 2022, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332 "2022-10-16T13:29:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/21 "2022-10-16T14:56:39Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > If this was a specific character uttering the words in various situations, that becomes part of the character’s persona. They might be a character with a grating persona, but at least it’s a consistent persona. Yes, it was written in the first person from the same character throughout, and I had considered that it could be taken as an intended quirk or personality trait of the character, but it was used so much it got really annoying. It’s like a bit of writing advice I heard or read somewhere— new writers sometimes try to get creative with their dialog, and instead of using the word “said” after a line of dialog, they say “…he uttered” or “…she exclaimed”. The advice was that even though that’s not wrong grammatically, it tends to take the reader out of the story flow, so just use “said”, which is more or less invisible to the reader. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > It may have been overused, but “crepuscular” does not mean “dark.” Its specific meaning is “at dawn or at dusk”. I do know the exact meaning of the word, but it seems like Koontz would use it in a general sense of “darkly evil” or “sinister”. Even if he used it in its literal sense, he definitely did overuse it. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/22 "2022-10-16T14:59:26Z")
Reacher said nothing. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/23 "2022-10-16T15:00:13Z")
“I can unclog drains with my mouth”, Tom said succinctly. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/24 "2022-10-16T15:03:00Z")
I note his repeated use of ‘congeries’. Almost nobody else ever uses that word, unless they are describing a Lovecraftian horror, especially one that looks like bubble-wrap. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/25 "2022-10-16T15:06:35Z")
I am bothered by overuse of trendy words or phrases. I recall a few years ago that the word “judder” seemed to be everywhere overnight. People started bum-rushing the bandwagon in 2002, and [in 2013 we reached peak judder](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=judder&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cjudder%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Cjudder%3B%2Cc0). Presumably the cool kids have found some other literary flourish to overuse. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/26 "2022-10-16T15:09:39Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I recall Stephen R. Donaldson having a few words that I never remembered encountering anywhere else but that he liked to use the hell out of, like “puissance” and “brisance.” I was so grateful to get Donaldson’s works on my Kindle, so I could just touch the word to get the definition. Reading his stuff was an exercise in expanding my vocabulary, albeit enjoyable. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/27 "2022-10-16T16:11:44Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > When I got my first Kindle maybe twelve years ago, I downloaded the complete stories by H. P. Lovecraft and read them cover to cover. It became obvious that his favorite adjective seems to have been “blasphemous”, I was going to mention Lovecraft, but for “cyclopean”. Also Anne Rice for “preternatural” and Neal Asher for “blow-by” (as in, describing a combat robot as looking like the blow-by of a horseshoe crab and a scorpion, for (not a real) example). ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/28 "2022-10-16T16:17:14Z")
It’s _really_ annoying when an author makes up a word, _then_ flogs it to death. Yes, Neal Stephenson and your overuse of the word “phant’sy” in The Baroque Cycle, I’m looking at you. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/29 "2022-10-16T16:29:00Z")
This year I read a number of books by Chris Bohjalian (highly recommended!). At some point, I realized that in EVERY book he used the word “myriad” at least once. Once I noticed it, I started looking of fit in subsequent books, and when it came, it was like, “Aha!” ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/30 "2022-10-16T16:54:24Z")
So he uses “myriad” myriad times? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/31 "2022-10-16T16:58:29Z")
By Klono’s brass balls I can’t think of any. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/32 "2022-10-16T17:00:02Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > When I got my first Kindle maybe twelve years ago, I downloaded the complete stories by H. P. Lovecraft and read them cover to cover. It became obvious that his favorite adjective seems to have been “blasphemous” I would have said illimitable. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/33 "2022-10-16T17:23:01Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > And Vonnegut used “so it goes” all over the place, but that was kinda his thing. Vonnegut only used “So it goes” in _Slaughterhouse 5_ when someone died. If you just saw it as a phrase, you missed something critical. The book is about death, specifically about how capricious death is in the moment yet comes to everyone eventually. Edited to link to a wonderful essay by [Salman Rushdie on the book and Vonnegut](https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-kurt-vonneguts-slaughterhouse-five-tells-us-now). > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > “I can unclog drains with my mouth”, Tom said succinctly. There are no Tom Swifties in the Tom Swift books. The author of the original early 20th century series, Howard Garis, used adverbs frequently, and people noticed them. This was a hallmark of hack writing, so much so that writers like Hemingway and Stephen King called for striking out all adverbs, which is just silly. But Garis never seemed to used the particular kind of self-referential adverb that is the point of the Tom Swifty. Those are much later jokes parodying the style, spread by a 1963 book of that title. Dickens did one, though, in _Our Mutual Friend_. > “You find it Very Large?” said Mr. Podsnap, spaciously. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/34 "2022-10-16T17:37:56Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Vonnegut only used “So it goes” in _Slaughterhouse 5_ when someone died. I got that. But I thought he used it in _Breakfast of Champions_ as well. Apparently, the phrase there was “and so on”. It’s been 30 years since I read a Vonnegut novel. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/35 "2022-10-16T17:48:52Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Neal Asher for “blow-by” (as in, describing a combat robot as looking like the blow-by of a horseshoe crab and a scorpion, for (not a real) example). Huh. I’ve never heard of “blow-by”. I have heard of “by-blow”. I suspect Mr. Asher is committing malapropism, as “blow-by” means [https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/blow-by](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/blow-by) ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/36 "2022-10-16T18:21:46Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > It’s _really_ annoying when an author makes up a word, _then_ flogs it to death. Yes, Neal Stephenson and your overuse of the word “phant’sy” in The Baroque Cycle, I’m looking at you. Harry Turtledove’s “Crosstime Traffic” books often have the characters lamenting the lack of some kind of hygiene device - fartasta? farsata? (Sorry, I don’t have one of the books at hand.) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/37 "2022-10-16T18:27:21Z")
As Rushdie writes, lots of people read _Slaughterhouse-Five_ (not 5: have to nitpick myself) when they’re young and miss the context of the repetition. He did, I did. I bet most people do. The book requires rereading. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/38 "2022-10-16T18:38:07Z")
Yes, repetition to make a point is a valid literary device. I guess this thread is more about the unintended repetitions or misuse. Even if it’s fully intentional, it can be overdone to the point that it gets annoying and takes a reader out of the story flow. So I guess this thread is about that, as well. But it is important to keep in mind that repetition to make a point is a valid literary device. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/39 "2022-10-16T18:48:42Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Yes, repetition to make a point is a valid literary device. … But it is important to keep in mind that repetition to make a point is a valid literary device. I see what you did there. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/40 "2022-10-16T19:33:19Z")
From a previous thread about authors you like who have habits you don’t always like in their writing: > [@Tell us something you hate about an author you love.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-something-you-hate-about-an-author-you-love/680167/50): > > Ah yeah, Stephen King. In addition to the forementioned “can’t wrap the damn thing up at the end” problem, he gets these turns of phrases stuck in his head and, like a tongue that keeps going back to a broken tooth, he can’t leave them alone but has his characters keep repeating them. Smucking. Getting up to didoes. Deadfall. And in a similar vein he can start off with a cute and compelling insight into how folks’ minds actually work, including the inelegant and silly and embarrassing thi… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332.md?page=3)