Clarissa Speak

Published by

Clarissa

September 9, 2011

Reader Elizabeth recently paid me a great compliment:

If by language of your own, you mean the unique “voice” that authors are supposed to have…..ohh yeah you totally do. I feel like I could recognize something you write a mile away.

This comment made me very happy and inspired me to compile a list of my trademark words and expressions, a.k.a. words I grievously overuse:

screeching
endless
vile jerks
all kinds of fool
crazed religious fanatics
those stupid XYZs
so (at the beginning of a sentence)
Ah!
irredeemably
quasi-
pseudo-
the whole process
this is torture
has the gall
as much as the next person
move on already
creepazoid

I just remembered more:

buddy – to signal annoyance
my friend – to signal that I’m smiling when I write it

Feel free to add any other verbal constructions or linguistic peculiarities that you associate with me. 🙂

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8 responses to “Clarissa Speak”

nominatissima

September 9, 2011

Hysterical!

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graciado

September 9, 2011

Haha!

This post reminds me of when I was teaching 12-year-olds, and one day one of them remarked on how I let sentences trail off and use “so” all the time to start sentences, both of which they found funny! “So” is my standard go-to prompt when they’ve only given half an answer, though; what else are we supposed to use?

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Elizabeth

September 9, 2011

hey sweet, I get my own post! Not bad at all. Your language is definitely harsh (not in a negative way) and very decisive. And like many people who have thoroughly mastered English but not as a first language, you sometimes have ways of saying things that are thoroughly correct and yet not quite the way native speakers expect to hear it. It’s very charming, altogether!

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181

September 10, 2011

Buddy… I afraid to comment here now, my friend. You do have a distinct and recognizable style.
🙂

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Anonymous

September 13, 2011

I haven’t been reading your blog enough yet to comment on your distinct style–hell I don’t even recognize my own, although I’ve been told by a good friend that I do have a style that he instantly recognizes. It has always surprised me to hear that. This is interesting though and that you notice words that you tend to use. I can’t say that I’m observant or that I pay much notice to my own style of word choice–patterns. It’s like hearing a recording of my voice–it doesn’t sound the same as when I hear myself speak. My focus has always been more on clarity and if I’m getting my point across or evoking the type of response I’d like.

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Old Post Rescue #1 | Clarissa's Blog

January 7, 2014

[…] And, finally, “Clarissa Speak“, one of my favorite posts where I listed the peculiarities of my blogging […]

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Benoni

January 7, 2014

How could you have written a glossary of Clarissa Speak and missed the word “egregious”?

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 7, 2014
  
  Exactly! I actually searched for this post by entering “egregious” in the search box. I was so sure it had to be there.
  
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