Great Words That You Probably Don't Use

[Zootonius]

A simple word that is perfect at the right moment, 'Din.' As I just wrote:

"Paul!" he heard shouted at him over the din.

 

[Duleigh]

A simple word that is perfect at the right moment, 'Din.' As I just wrote:

"Paul!" he heard shouted at him over the din.

Yes, din works, but pandemonium sings

 

[Zootonius]

Yes, din works, but pandemonium sings

I dunno. pandemonium sounds more like:

 

[SimonDoom]

"Lubricious." Love this word. It means "offensively displaying or intended to arouse sexual desire." It just sounds dirty. I don't think I've used it yet in a story, but I plan to.

 

[StillStunned]

A simple word that is perfect at the right moment, 'Din.' As I just wrote:

"Paul!" he heard shouted at him over the din.

A story about the word "din".

There's a medieval poem called "Sir Orfeo". Superficially, it follows the story of Orpheus in the Underworld, but there are some unique features.

Anyway, Sir Orfeo has been wandering through the wilderness looking for his wife, who has been stolen by faeries. Suddenly he sees the court of the King of the Faeries riding by, "with dim sound".

Medievalists wrote pages about the beauty of this: how the faeries were visible, but the muted sound showed they were in a different world, etc.

And then one scholar went back to the original manuscript, and saw that the text actually read "with din sound", i.e. with a lot of noise.

 

[MrPixel]

"Lubricious."

Sounds like a brand of flavored sex jel.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

No, because palfrey is too close to paltry and the reader may just blip past it. Even when I hear it read aloud I think "did I mean paltry?" that would leave the reader with the idea that it's a worthless horse. That's something else I look at while I'm writing, can my choice of words be mistaken for something else? I try to avoid words like palfrey/paltry or pidgin/pigeon where the reader thinks creole is a bird cooing.

I know, I know, you can lead a reader to fodder but you can't make him think.

I had that potential issue with two proper names, in "Love versus the Spreadsheet." The female main character was originally named Phyllis, and she was observed many times by the Grecian demigod Psyche. There'd be no problem with the two spoken aloud, but the reader's eye might confuse two unusual names that begin with 'P_y.' I changed Phyllis to Felicia, and as far as I know, there hasn't been any reader confusion.

https://literotica.com/s/love-versus-the-spreadsheet

 

[Duleigh]

Sacrosanct and Cathartic are two favorites but I only put them in the mouth of a character that you wouldn't expect saying them. Here's Ivo Stein, an alcoholic womanizing gambling bum:

It’s not like I was plottin’ to overthrow the crown. Crowns are wosname… sacrosanct an’ all. Am I right?

Then working in that mine on Copperhead Mountain worked that booze out of my system and oi actually enjoyed the work. It was… wosname… cathartic is wot it was.

You get a good boost in humor putting words like that into the wrong person's mouth.

 

[Blueskiessmiling]

Indubitably