{"id":1511,"date":"2003-10-18T10:02:22","date_gmt":"2003-10-18T17:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2003\/10\/18\/1511.html"},"modified":"2003-10-18T10:02:22","modified_gmt":"2003-10-18T17:02:22","slug":"utterly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2003\/10\/18\/utterly\/","title":{"rendered":"Utterly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>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 <span class=\"word-as-word\">uttered<\/span> in place of <span class=\"word-as-word\">said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In general, I wouldn't use the word <span class=\"word-as-word\">uttered<\/span> 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.)<\/p>\n<p>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 (<span class=\"word-as-word\">smiled,<\/span> <span class=\"word-as-word\">frowned,<\/span> <span class=\"word-as-word\">sobbed,<\/span> etc) can't be used as speaking verbs; it seems to me that they're simply shorthand for speaking while performing the indicated actions.<\/p>\n<p>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 <span class=\"word-as-word\">uttered<\/span> is that it sounds archaic and melodramatic to me.<\/p>\n<p>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 <span class=\"word-as-word\">uttered<\/span> isn't the only speaking verb I recommend against using; just the one I've seen most often recently.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m never sure whether these things come in waves, or whether I just notice them in waves, but in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}