04-24-2013, 07:50 PM
(04-26-2012, 07:47 PM)romanticdress Wrote: "Horrible crime," small lawyer admitted. (Why "small"? So random...)
Ross's had the dual defect of having too few words where necessary and too many where not. He never turned down an opportunity to throw in three or four superfluous adjectives or adverbs, because, you know, god forbit the word "said" should get lonely.
Thus he was prone to "Swifties." That is to say unnecessary qualifiers, especially following a line of dialogue. The term was coined (I forget by whom) to poke fun at the less-than-stellar prose churned out by the Stratemeyer fiction factory (Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, et al.).
For instance: "Do your worst!" Tom said bravely.
This bad habit is related to Ross's tendency to add, as you say, random descriptives for characters that have already been described, in places where it's extremely distracting. E.g., "Pleased to meet you," said lithe, Titian-haired Nancy Drew. "I've never met a real count before!" gushed the slender eighteen-year-old Nancy. And so on.
Various authors have come up with some memorable "Swifties":
"Gee, lady, you've got a nice butt," Tom said cheekily.
"Get your own pizza," he said crustily.
"I've dropped my toothpaste!" she said, crestfallen.
& cetera.
