“Teachers! Please Do Not Make Your Students Use Synonyms for Said,” I Blurted

[Erik_Kowal]

Slate contributor Gabriel Roth makes the case for not defaulting to florid alternatives for simple words when writing prose descriptions:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_vall ... _idea.html

[Phil White]

Interesting. Excellent points well made.

In another post I said I was reading "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in Braille. I have to admit that I am only 2/3 of the way through as yet, and it is still very slow going. I mentioned that I am thoroughly enjoying the fine detail of Adams' prose, but one thing has quite shaken me. He rarely uses any other word than "said" (or occasionally "yelled" or "shouted") to introduce reported speech. If he needs to embellish the reporting verb, he generally does so with adverbials of different kinds, but mostly, he lets the words speak for themselves.

[BonnieL]

Reminds me of Swifties; remember those?

In my own writing I will occasionally say something like, "he said with a smile." Or introduce a quote with something like, "He recommends caution in x situation..."

Many of the articles I write need a "folksy" friendly tone (they are long-form advertisements), so I think I can get away with a little more than in more serious articles.