Books

I find in a few books where the author gets stuck on a word for a few chapters then moves onto the next. Like they are testing the word around the house for a week then move onto the next word.

A phrase, not a word (and I forget the book), but the author kept saying that characters ears were burning to indicate that they were angry. I'd never heard that phrase used in that context, and it was used that way a bunch of times in the book.

Authors definitely have crutch words. Sometimes it doesn't bother me too much if it's a really common word. But seeing acerbic often would drive me nuts.

The majority of times I’ve seen the word “questing” in my life were when I was reading Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy.

the Invisible Life of Addie Larue - Palimpsest. It drove me crazy!!

In the English translation of tender is the flesh, the word lava comes up a lot. Flesh burned like lava, eyes like icy lava. Just a lot of lava comparisons lol, it took me out of it a bit at the time

I’ve always been a fan of British author Dick Francis, but it wasn’t until I listened to his audiobooks that I realized he’s a big fan of “boring”.

As in, after I was beaten to a pulp, someone asked how I was and I said the bruises were quite boring.

Murakami: Boobs

Book 5 of Harry Potter, every character calling who they are speaking to "mate" She didn't use that before book 5, and it's much less frequent in 6 and 7. But in 5 she used it so much the word started to loose meaning

Micheal Moorcock is probably on commission for 'sardonic'. Looking at you, every description of Elric ever.

It’s so funny-Before I saw what book you were reading, I read the first sentence- the question- of your post I thought: Yes! Julia Quinn!! Except it’s not a word that she repeats, it’s a phrase. She repeats “He wanted her- god, did he want her!” in several of her books.

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.

E.L. James: murmur. No one speaks in her books. I only read the first book, and once I counted the word, "murmur" 12 times between the opposite pages.

Stephen Erikson in the Malazan books “must needs” to use certain words and phrases endlessly, causing my eyes to turn “lambent” with recognition whenever i see them. I am now so used to them my soul is “gelid” without them.

The characters in The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie shrug as a reaction to almost anything and they do it ALL the time. Love those books but damn that got annoying fast.

I tried the ACOTAR series (got to the 3rd book and had to stop) and Sarah j Maas CONSTANTLY uses the term “vulgar gesture” for some reason. That was part of the reason I had to stop.

Only two or three times in the three books that are out, so not that egregious, but in the Locked Tomb series someone is constantly saying something “sotto voce”…It’s such a unique way of saying “whisper” that I can’t help to notice it and think “You really enjoyed that turn of phrase, eh?”

Dostoevsky and “magnanimous.” (In translation.) I assume in Russian, there’s a word for the same thing that is just more frequently used than “magnanimous” is in English.

I learned a new word today.

Try to surmise what it is.

I'll give you three surmises.

I believe Margaret Atwood used the word „flesh“ in The Handmaid‘s Tale quite a lot

Lovecraft. Eldritch.

The Dresden Files series has a lot of them, but it’s been years since I read them so I’ve forgotten a lot. One that I definitely remember is the word “Serpentine”, used to describe an attractive woman. Either the way she moves, or her figure. He uses it for pretty much every scene used to describe an attractive woman in the series, and there are a lot of them.

Stephen King and arc sodium lights!

I love Terry Pratchett, but you could often tell which was his current “pet” word at the time of writing. “Gingerly” is one that got around, but there’s plenty of others he loved too.

Ayn Rand overuses “impertinent.” Very annoying. But then her prose is pretty ordinary. It’s the plots that are interesting.

This isn't an author but I am sick of the word "iconic". It is so overused lately. It has lost its meaning. Everything is iconic.

I can’t remember exactly but if you’re using octogenarian more than once in a book, it’s too much

Incidentally, William Peter Blatty loved to use the word incidentally as often as he possibly could.

I made a whole post on instagram about Julia Quinn and the phrase "he ground out" "Colin ground out" in "Romancing Mr. Bridgerton"

I was reading a book where characters kept shrugging and so I looked up the word shrug in the search bar and it appeared I think 34 times. Which for a 200 something page book feels like a lot.

Also another book had the main character’s friend and his husband show up quite often and they were always referred to as “Dave and his husband Steve” after the 5th or 6th time I was well aware who Steve was

“Preternatural” can you guess which book/books this repeated word is from…?

E.E. "Doc" Smith -- coruscating

“Judder” in Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet ugh.

Philip K Dick uses “ersatz” probably 7 or 8 times in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?