“…and the chickens were in layers” (Twilight) (the first chapter (actually, the first page of one of the chapters (actually, the more I think about it the less I know where it was. I just know it was in Twilight which I can’t confirm for sure because I don’t have the books anymore)) and I could not stop wondering what the heck she was talking about. I remember they had arrived at a house and the chickens were in layers.)
“sweet grass and sweat commingling” (Markswoman) (who USES this word? Com-commingling? Such a mouthful and I have never seen this word before. Why not just “mingling”? What’s wrong with “mingling”?)
“pregnant silence” (a Wattpad book) (I know this is a common phrase, but it just bugs me and I don’t see it often)
There are very few unusual words/phrases that I see authors using. But when I see them, I never forget them. I’m not saying they’re wrong, but they are unusual to me. Any weird ones you’ve seen and never forgotten?
(this thread is really an excuse for me to tell you that I saw these weird phrases and will never forget them )
I love Powerwolf, and I love Nighttime Rebel, but no native English speaker I know would ever say “All we ride against the dark”, it’s always “We all ride against the dark”. Nothing would change, it’s just a bizarre grammatical error.
I use a good bit of unusual stuff because I’m unusual. A lot of it is mildly humorous, but it’s often because I feel language should be tailored to the world it exists in without being too heavy for a the common reader to follow.
So you use a quirk or two to a given world. Thrice cursed is common to To Make a Kinder Children’s Tale. So is Hindbrain or hind lobes.
Lion and Wolf are the subconscious designations of the two elves in the Lizard MC’s life: she’s not been aware she calls them that, but her caretaker is, and so two “princes” of two different peoples are called 4-legged predators. If she had made a conscious choice about it, she’d call them two Fancy Birds fighting (peacocks). The reasoning is that she thinks of them as predators subconsciously (as she’s a predator herself (carnivore)), but Elves tend towards vegetarianism and definitely more mammalian than a Lizard is. It’s “this is an equal, a worthy mate” although she’s been content with not having such a relationship, it’s more about being able to take orders as a subordinate. Some part of her has to see them as equally violent to be able to obey commands. And Rock Fowl are basically chickens with a bit of dragon to them but not Cockatrices?
But really, I just speak like that, naturally: it’s why I write strange phrases up in here all the time. So, sometimes I miss what others do because they are mild? I mean, I sitting here, trying to concentrate on finishing up this post and my brains over here yammering about “Why don’t you screw up counting chickens before they hatch and putting your eggs in one basket, huh? Just go, “It’s like trying to count a basket of hatching chicks!” No, no, that’s too close to herding cats, come one and shaddup, brain!”
I do agree with this. But it will make me stop and go like “WHAT” for a moment and then never forget it. I guess that’s good because, for example, then I will always remember commingling as used in Markswoman even if I wanted to forget the book But there was no other indication that the character would normally use a word like that. In fact, it was the POV of a side character that rarely spoke and if she did, she was always timid and child-like.
I think it happens once more because someone pulled out the thesaurus. That and I don’t find a lot of people think about tailoring words to worlds without going full-bore “let’s create a new language”.
For some bizzare reason… lattice walls is stuck in my head from the Jasmine Throne.
Never seen this word used as frequently before, but now I’ve been noticing it everywhere
Maybe it wasn’t the first chapter. But I remember seeing it in the first book.
Now that I think about it, it might have been in the beginning of “a” chapter in that book. I read that book when it came out Forgive me for not being accurate.
I just watched three entire rant videos about the acotar trilogy and they said the exact same thing. Why use the word “mate” unless writing a nature documentary? And they also said it’s animalistic.
I cringe at that word in werewolf books. I know they are wolves, but they turn into humans so that’s makes it cringy to me
Hmm, I’ve heard of pregnant silence, and yeah, it does sound kind of weird.
I think the most ridiculous descriptions/wording I heard was from some erotica novel my friend and I found on Amazon, and we found snippets of it to make us laugh/feel better about our writing. Somehow this book has sold thousands of copies, and it is sooooo bad. But maybe that’s what’s made it a success?
But there was no other indication that the character would normally use a word like that. In fact, it was the POV of a side character that rarely spoke and if she did, she was always timid and child-like.
Forgive me for not being accurate.
But maybe that’s what’s made it a success?