Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

This post is by Nancy Jardine

I read an article last week− one shared on Facebook − about the controversy over the use of the word said in our writing. Should the overused said be totally expunged from fiction? Or should it be used as often as an author thinks a reader is comfortable with it? The article particularly highlighted the laziness of some authors who don’t bother, or take time to vary their vocabulary- their editing skills sloppy. The boring repetition of some recently produced highly-acclaimed novels was regarded as poor writing being given a prominence that shouldn’t be occurring; and, in essence, an encouragement of the dumbing down of the English language. (My apologies- since it was late at night I didn’t bookmark that particular article, though a Google search will bring up plenty of other articles as in-  HERE)

I know that my own writing style, and…