I spent a little time yesterday working on one of my novels, tweaking up the intro a bit and as I made my way through the first few paragraphs I found a word that I used that shocked me.
"Cantankerous"
Now, I know it isn't the rarest word out there, but it certainly isn't used in every day speech. At least I've never ever heard a soul actually use that word. I've only ever read it. So I got to thinking that maybe I should force myself to use that word today. At some point, I'm going to use it when talking to someone and see if they say anything or even notice. I'm not sure if they'll give half a rats-butt or if they'll just think I'm being stupid. Either way, I think it could be a fun experiment and would challenge you to do the same thing.
Find a word that you've written in your novel, but that you rarely ever hear, and try to use it today. Let me know what happens.
2 comments:
I have used cantankerous in speech. but pretty much only with Lana and a few academics of my acquaintance.
Nice! Well, in that type of conversation it might fly, but apart from academic-folk I'm sure people would look at us like we are aliens if we bust out with a "cantankerous" reference at random. lol
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