What are your least favorite words?

[serria]

Does any word, whether in fanfiction or original fiction, just make you cringe? What word do you hate?

Comments

[inkdust]

I mostly get bothered by words when I figure out an author's pet word and then notice every single time they use it in the story. Phrases, too. That can get really bad.

And anyone directly calling someone else "lover." It's fine as a noun if it fits the story, but seeing it as a pet name, I cringe.

[serria]

Oh, definitely agree. Sometimes an author overuses a word or phrase to the point where you start noticing it even if you aren't looking. (I remember thinking that when I read The Hunger Games trilogy, I kept seeing the phrase "make a beeline" and I don't know if it's my imagination, but it started to annoy me).

Lover is definitely suffers from usually sounding unnatural. I've heard it as a pet name, but in fiction it often sounds stilted.

[sonneta]

Faerie. (I have no problem with "fairy".)

[serria]

That one does look rather pretentious, doesn't it? Haha. I generally don't like fancy alternative spellings when there is a perfectly spell-check acceptable version in popular use.