# 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:** 7\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/141 "2022-10-25T05:51:27Z")
> [@AppallingGael](#): > > Did she spell out the word “heart”, or use a symbol? I assumed that Elmer\_J.Fudd was referring to the 19th-century novelist Jane Austen, but in that case I have no idea what he was talking about. Jane Austen does routinely use the word “heart” to signify emotions or emotional potential in general (“warm heart”, “light-hearted”, “goodness of heart”, “a full heart”, etc.), but so does pretty much every other writer in the English language. AFAICT it makes no sense to say that Austen “overused” the word or that her use of it constitutes a particular “habit” or “tic”. But maybe Elmer was referring to a different Jane Austin, and/or meant something else that I just failed to understand. ---
**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 25, 2022, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/142 "2022-10-25T19:11:55Z")
Pardon my spelling. The most annoying repeated use in Austen’s novels is the expression “with all my heart”. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/143 "2022-10-25T20:35:14Z")
Huh. “With all my heart” as Austen uses it in character dialogue, in the standard sense of “sincerely”, “wholeheartedly”, “willingly” etc., is still such a commonly used conversational phrase—and even more so in Austen’s time—that I never even noticed it as in any way specially characteristic of Austen’s novels. (Especially since it seems to occur only once in most of the novels, with maybe four to eight repetitions in the others). And I would never have described that phrase as using “the word ‘heart’ as a synonym for ‘love’.” It would make no sense to say “with all my love” in the contexts where Austen’s characters say “with all my heart”, as in Tom Bertram’s remark about acting parts in amateur theatricals in Mansfield Park: > [@](#): > > "[…] let her take Cottager’s speeches instead of Cottager’s wife’s, and so change the parts all through […] It could make no difference in the play, and as for Cottager himself, when he has got his wife’s speeches, _I_ would undertake him with all my heart.” Just goes to show, as the saying is, that there are as many interpretations of any written work as there are readers of it. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2022, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/144 "2022-10-25T21:18:56Z")
There was a sort of tic in works by the early 20th century author William Sydney Porter. Having done a stretch in prison, many of his characters were thuggish types with a rough urban manner of speaking, but every now and then they would use an unexpected $5 word (back then, $5 bought one a lot of syllables). Not sure exactly why he did that. Probably to keep the reader a little off-balance. ---
**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 25, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/145 "2022-10-25T22:50:08Z")
Having read a lot of hardboiled pulp fiction, my impression is that $5 was the opposite of two-bit (25 cents). ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2022, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/146 "2022-10-26T02:44:59Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > I’m a big Stephen King fan, but I had a really hard time getting through _Lisey’s Story_ due to the overuse of the word “smucking.” You can really tell when an author is in love with a word they made up, because they pepper it throughout the entire book. I still can’t figure out what the fuck “Jimla” was supposed to mean in _11/22/63_. Something about a quarterback? ---
**Author:** ![de\_Worde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@de\_Worde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/de_Worde)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2022, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-particular-linguistic-habits-or-tics-like-often-repeated-or-misused-words-or-phrases/973332/147 "2022-10-26T16:32:59Z")
Edgar Rice Burroughs often sent his heroes through “Stygian darkness” – and sometimes “Cimmerian darkness” – on their way to save damsels from a “Fate worse than death.” [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=7)