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Do you ever notice an author using a word over and over again? (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by PastaConsumer@alien.top to c/books@metacritics.zone

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I’m currently reading The Duke and I and the author is constantly using the word “acerbic”. I had never heard of the word before now and had to google the definition. The word has shown up so much that I’m tempted to go through the book and count its appearances lol.

Have you noticed any authors having favorite words that they use page after page?

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[–] SplendidPunkinButter@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No author has ever overused a word more than Edward Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He uses the word “insensible” or “insensibly” at least every other page, and I’m not exaggerating.

[–] Baconsommh@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

His prose tends to be a shade too pompous for my taste.

One of the more annoying tics of 18th-century prose is the habit of referring to people as “the [adjective] So-and-So”, instead of referring simply to “So-and-So”.