What are your most hated metaphors, similes, turns of phrase etc.?

My most hated "interesting" word is...

Quagmire.

"Jerry was in a quagmire of indecision and loneliness."

I'm over it. While it reminds me of family guy (which is totally awesome), it's still my most hated word.

And most hated turn of phrase...

"A spine-tingling sensation." aka "She felt a tingle go up her spine."

Spines don't tingle. I hear/read it too much in "horrific" "disturbing" or "macabre" stories and it is far too overused.

And it also sounds vaguely sexual.

So, what are your pet peeves in the English language?

 

"Lopsided smile."

End of.

 

I entered an original fiction writing contest recently and was chagrined upon rereading to note that in the 3000 word story, I had used both "hagiographic" and "hagiography." This is my new least favorite word.

Others in fanfiction: cerulean (in reference to Dumbledore's eyes). Double-minus points for "cerulean orbs", unless used ironically. "Chocolate orbs" for Ginny run a close second. "Horse-faced" in reference to Petunia. The list goes on.

 

Sure they do. It used to happen to me every now and then when I pissed.

 

sexy smirk anyone?

 

"Thinking like a Slytherin."

Hands down that, and its variations, annoys me more than any other metaphor in HP fanfiction.

 

'Like a (Hogwarts House)' is enough to turn me off any story, usually.

Can't think of any others at the moment, except for EVERY WORD MY ENGLISH TEACHER HAS ON HER WORD OF THE DAY CALENDER. She brought in about 3 months worth of words, and I can count on one hand the amount that I could use weekly. Words like cerulean, quagmire, nexus and many other stupidly useless words. Basically, any word that has a simpler word that describes it just as well is garbage in my mind.

 

There are no two words that are exact synonyms. There's always at least a very subtle distinction between the two meanings, even if it's only implied by it's common usage. Cerulean is an exact shade of blue. A quagmire is an exact type of swampy ground, used as a metaphor for a situation you get bogged down in with a single step out of place. A nexus is a slightly more metaphysical way of saying intersection or meeting point.

 

Yes, while there are no exact synonyms, we have no need to use a bigger word in the place of another word that would fit the meaning correctly. Unless you really, really want to specify the difference between a swamp/quicksand and a quagmire, it is my opinion that you should go with the more universally understood swamp. While cerulean is an exact shade of blue, it's rare that it being that exact shade ever matters. Nexus...shouldn't exist, in my opinion. But that's the world according to me.

And no one should ever need to use the term 'orb' when referring to eyeballs anyway. It's a rare occasion in fanfic that anyone needs a synonym for eyes, and anyone who does should be paying more attention to the rest of the story than the description of a sensory device.

 

Remind me never to read anything you bother to write, since it'll probably involve stick figures drawn with crayons and those giant pencils usually reserved for the cherubic chubby hands of pre-schoolers.

/checks to be sure no superfluous wordy words were used in that sarcastic rebuttal smarty-pants comeback.

 

Read something like Waugh and you'll quickly see there are situations in which to use extremely precise language. When it's done well, it's amazing.

 

Except swamp, quicksand, and quagmire have very different metaphorical meanings. A swamp is a situation that is unpleasant. Quicksand is a situation that you get stuck in and can't escape from. Quagmire is a situation you get bogged down in and takes time and effort to escape from.

How dare writers try to increase immersion by describing the characters in higher levels of detail. Clearly they should cut this shit out for the sake of your poor, limited vocabulary.

Here's a word that you probably also don't like: ellipse. It describes the only reaction I can muster to this sentence.

Here it is:

...

 

"Ministrations" sometimes annoys me. Specifically in the plural form, yes, as that is the version fanfic authors generally use for their sex scenes.

After typing that, I googled a bit and managed to find this. It didn't really help.

 

Yeah. I guess I don't mean that they should be cut out completely, just from certain situations. Specifically, those where people try to sound smarter than they are. I do like when the words are used and they fit, but it's annoying when writers use big descriptive words just to sound experienced or something(not that that's such a big thing here).

Portus, if I had crayons, I would surely draw you an amazing stick-figure picture. As it is, all I have are pencils way too small for my chubby hands.

 

Works fine for me. Thanks for the link.

As for expressions that are quickly losing their worth from over-use, I'd nominate every instance of 'Seriously' after Harry's second year.
Also becoming a trigger for my eye-twitch is 'humping' when used in reference to Dobby. See Warlocke's sig for more info.

Also, can someone tell me where and when every adult in creation became aware of Hermione Granger as a personification of 'bright'? I'm fairly sure it was something Lupin mentioned to Sirius, which puts the meaning of his assessment in question. Lupin's already confirmed to covet younger girls, and he hasn't waxed poetic about any other female since Lily...

Danger, Granger. I sense danger!

 

That's not overuse of metaphors, similes and 'interesting' words. That's just underuse of brain.

 

He smirked in victory.

She smirked in triumph.

They smirked.

The giant smirked.

The giant smirk.

Smirk.

Smirk.

Smirk.

I hate it so much. Use something else! I once read a fic where the author seriously had forty eight smirks per chapter. I counted.

They were 2000 word chapters.

 

^This.

I've read so many Naruto fanfics that describe his eyes as "cerulean", it's not even funny. While it's true that blue and cerulean don't mean exactly the same thing, it's close enough that no one really cares, and I don't think that having someone's eyes described as cerulean instead of blue really effects how detailed a picture of a character is in my mind, especially since with characters such as Dumbledore and Naruto, I've already got a firm mental picture of what they look like. It doesn't have anything to do with intelligence (though several of you certainly have much larger vocabularies than I) or a need to use 'smaller words', it's just that most of the time when this word's used, it tends to be from people trying to sound smarter than they are.

There are probably instances where describing something as "cerulean" instead of just blue is warranted, but most of the time it's just an annoyance.

Other words that I think are completely overused in fanfiction:

Dumbles/Dumbledork
Death Munchers/Nibblers/any-other-variation-of-this
Order of the Fried Chicken (or something similar - back when Independent!Harry fics were so popular, this in particular drove me crazy)
Moldyshorts

...or basically any of the other annoying nicknames Harry was always giving people in Indy!Harry fics.

 

The thing is HP is children book. Therefore it doesn't contain that many obscure words. So when a author writes something like that in FF it looks out of place most of time.

Long story short either upgrade your whole language or don't.