Utterly
18 October 2003, 10:02 AM
I'm never sure whether these things come in waves, or whether I just notice them in waves, but in the past few weeks, I've seen quite a few stories that use the verb uttered in place of said.
In general, I wouldn't use the word uttered in fiction except in the most eldritch of Lovecraft impressions or the highest of high fantasy. (Um, I'm talking about using it with a directly quoted line of dialogue; it stands out less with an indirect quotation. "'Damn,' he uttered" doesn't work for me, but "He uttered an oath" sounds a little less weird to me. Though still probably a tad old-fashioned.)
I should note that I don't particularly dislike "said" bookisms (verbs used in place of "said") on general principles. I often quite like them, in fact. And I disagree with those articles and teachers who say that facial expressions and other actions (smiled, frowned, sobbed, etc) can't be used as speaking verbs; it seems to me that they're simply shorthand for speaking while performing the indicated actions.
However, I do agree with everyone else that "said" bookisms (what a clumsy term!) can be and are frequently overused, and that some of them don't go over well with modern readers in a modern-setting story. What I don't like about uttered is that it sounds archaic and melodramatic to me.
I started to list some other verbs in that category, then realized there are too many of them. So just take it for granted that uttered isn't the only speaking verb I recommend against using; just the one I've seen most often recently.
Standard disclaimer: I would never reject a story, or even stop reading it, because of a few jarring words. But if there are a bunch of them, it does make me less favorably inclined toward the story.
Comments
Yay! I'm not the only person who doesn't mind the whole "she smiled" "she frowned" dialogue tag thing.
Posted by: Tempest (web) | October 18, 2003 1:21 PM
Maybe the stories you're seeing were written by people inspired by Brust. :^)
Posted by: Anonymous | October 18, 2003 8:43 PM
Oops, forgot that your site doesn't remember who I am.... That Brust comment was me.
Posted by: irilyth | October 18, 2003 8:44 PM
Folks,
Actually it quite safe to use "she smiled" and other such short sentences masquerading as dialogue modifiers, I've recently discovered.
There is a difference between a said bookism such as:
"Hello there," she smiled.
And a perfectly legitimate usage such as:
"Hello there." She smiled.
See the difference? But the effect remains the same. I used to not know this teeny weeeny difference for years until someone who knew better explained it.
Now you probably know this already, but I was told that the first example was actually incorrect grammatically, while the second was all kosher. Since English is my second language, I do tend to still make weird grammar mistakes.
Posted by: Vera Nazarian (web) | October 18, 2003 10:11 PM
It's true that your second example, Vera, is fine. But I would also say (though I know many disagree with me) that your first example is fine, at least in some contexts, and if that kind of thing isn't overused in the story. And to me, the two examples suggest slightly different meanings: the first indicates that she's smiling as she says it, while the second indicates that she says it and then smiles. Of course, if you want the smiling to happen first, you can always say:
She smiled. "Hello there!"
(Btw, to me, this looks wrong:
* She smiled, "Hello there!"
)
Posted by: Jed | October 18, 2003 10:20 PM
Yeah, I'm with Jed on that one.
Posted by: Tempest (web) | October 19, 2003 2:09 PM
Jed,
I kinda see your point, really I do. And your sense of the language is better than mine anyway.... But I guess what I am saying is, this is a bit of a gray area.
What I was told about that first usage with the comma is that it is incorrect because a person does not "smile" speech, and that a dialogue modifier has to be a type of utterance, which the act of smiling is not.
So now I try to stick to it, since there are plenty of grammar things I do get wrong and the last thing I want is to risk making such public mistakes (or even potential mistakes) and then have reviewers tell me I am using incorrect English (this already happened once with a reviewer and it really disturbed me when the person overlooked many of the good points of my work and instead picked on a couple of words and their usage at length.)
So anyway, that's the reason I bring it up. Anything in a usage gray area I now try to avoid.
Posted by: Vera Nazarian (web) | October 19, 2003 3:40 PM