Books

Cormac McCarthy sure loves these words: jackpot, glassed, and pipeclayed.

Tamsyn Muir uses the word "wet" or variations thereof a lot. It's not so ubiquitous as to be annoying, but it is noticable.

Off topic but a fun fact...

Stephen Fry was contacted to read for the Harry Potter audio books. The first time he met JK Rowling she told him she had already wrote a second book. He said in a condescending tone, "Well good for you."

When he was reading the third or fourth book there was the phrase "Harry pocketed it". Fry could not say it, after many tries he called Rowling asking to change the phrase. She said no because kids reading along would get confused by the change.

So Fry finally got the phrase recorded, and then every Potter book after that Rowling included the phrase "Harry pocketed it" just as a jab at Fry.

Harlan Ellison loved Scintilla.

Terry Brooks seems to call all guns or gun-like weapons "flechettes" and Robert Jordan says a lot of phrases over and over in the Wheel of Time series, like "she crossed her arms under her breasts." Really? She didn't just cross her arms?

Hyperion Cantos - “gossamer”

Expanse series - “constituent atoms”

Yes: "smirk" is wrongly used and overused in too many romances. Apparently, people don't look words up?

For some reason I noticed “unkempt” a lot in book 2 of The First Law trilogy, Before They Are Hanged.

Ya know, I've noticed several authors tend to use the word 'the' A LOT. Like it's all over the place. And no one calls them on it either. Lack of creativity right there, I tell ya.

Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and ‘benevolent’

John Gwynne, The Shadow of the Gods (The Bloodsworn Trilogy #1).

I picked up this fantasy novel on jacket copy alone, never heard of the author or any of his works before. Sounded like a good fit for my reading likes; epic fantasy, Nordic influenced, gritty combat, etc. Maybe it would be similar to a Joe Abercrombie novel, is what I thought at the time.

Nope.

Yes, there are some neat set-pieces, and the town built in a dragon skull is very cool, but there is one word that is used to distraction; "seax." Apparently this is some kind of Viking knife or small sword, but boy howdy; Mr. Gwynne loves this word. Every few pages, one of his characters is described as wearing "ax and seax on his (or her) belt," or "picked up belt with ax and seax and tightened it around his waist." That latter sentence feels like it occurs 50+ times in the course of this one novel.

The book felt like it was written by cut-and-paste, to boost word count. Or "find and replace" maybe. The exact same terms, the exact same words, the exact same sentences were repeated across multiple chapters. I read the whole thing, thinking it would get better, but that was a lost cause.

I wanted to like the book, but it became so distracting to get the exact same terms used over and over and over... Yes, I can understand why there may not be much difference in what a fighter carried into combat, but ffs, you don't need to list it out ever single damned time! Use a synonym once in a while!

"Seax."

Turned me off the book so badly that Gwynne is on my "Never Ever Read" list now.

Probably only noticed this one because you don't see it every day, but "sotto voce" came up a few times in Gideon the Ninth. It's only used maybe once or twice in the sequels and it was a bit like running into an old friend when I saw it there!

Not a word, but reading through Abercrombies First Law for the first time and everybody is constantly sucking their teeth or gums.

David Eddings and the word bleak....

“Myriad” in Gideon the Ninth and now Harrow the Ninth. It cropped up about halfway through the first book and was used half a dozen times in ~200 pages. I just started the second book but I’ve seen it a couple times already. The word “racine” has also been repeated, less often but really noticeable because I was unfamiliar and it wasn’t in the onboard dictionary. From context, I think the book uses it as an adjective meaning “root-like,” which is not a readily apparent definition.

J K Rowling is very fond of “zoom” and variants, in the Harry Potter books. And there is a lot of “beaming” and “roaring” as well.

Guess the series: ochre and potsherds

“Invisible Monsters” by Chuck Palahniuk

“Plumbago lips” and “queen supreme”

God I really did not like that book.

I had to take a break from an otherwise great fanfic when I noticed I’d started counting the number of quirking mouths (and/or eyebrows) in each chapter. I still feel a little tic (a quirk of an eyebrow, if you will) coming on when I see the expression. I would have said this is the kind of thing an editor saves you from, but having seen all the other examples in the thread, maybe not…

I can’t remember the specific word phrase but it was almost a running joke when Lindsay Ellis's Axiom‘s End came out.

David Weber using "murmur" in the Honor Harrington books.

I hate when authors just lather pages with repetitive words.

I'm looking at you "the" "and" and "a/an"

Bram Stoker uses "voluptuous" a lot in Dracula

Peter F Hamilton and his “enzyme bonded concrete.”

Terra Westover used "gossamer" way too often in Educated.

I remember reading Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and seeing the word wretched everywhere.

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

I read the Lycans series by Jenika Snow. She uses the same phrases over and over, sometimes in back to back paragraphs. It was really annoying. "Long moments." "He didn't phrase it as a question." "Right now."

HP Lovecraft was rock fucking hard for the word "cyclopean"

Also "Non-Euclidean geometry"

I remember reading through the Lensman books as a teenager, a few of which I had with me on a coach trip around Europe with the Scouts.

No-one wanted to sit next to me, because they all knew I was going to punch someone in frustration the next time I read the word "prodigious".