Said Synonyms

Before I corrupt your vocabulary with stupid synonyms, I warn you that “said” is perfect for 75% of dialogue. It is not just acceptable, tolerable, passable, or okay – “said” is perfect.

There’s a misconception among composition teachers and young writers that because “said” is a boring word, it shouldn’t be used. “Said Jenny” tells you Jenny spoke. It does not show with vivid imagery her tongue wagging and lips flapping. It does not delight with fanciful diction. It tells you, and every writer has heard “Show, don’t tell,” though that’s a false generalization whipped into you by middle school teachers who are desperate to improve your writing for standardized tests. But “said” is for clarity – so tell us. How would you show someone, through text alone, wiggling their tongue and contorting their mouth and sound coming out? You can’t in a consistently interesting way without getting repetitive or wordy and so you shouldn’t bother. Tell us who is speaking and move on. Most readers skim for the name anyway and care nothing for the verb.

The misconception comes from poorly-written children books (with exceptions such as Holes and The Tale of Despereaux) where “said” is overused on a single page. I have altered an example from chapter 1 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to prove this point. I have not removed any narration; I’ve only added who said the lines. Read it aloud:

Tom said: “I can lick you!”
“I’d like to see you try it,” said the well-dressed boy.
“Well, I can do it,” said Tom.
“No you can’t either,” he said.
“Yes I can,” said Tom.
“No you can’t,” he said to Tom.
“I can,” Tom said.
“You can’t,” the well-dressed boy said.
“Can!” said Tom.
“Can’t!” he said.

And on it goes for over a page. When substituting for pre-K through 8th grade, I read books with dialogue set up like this with short, generic dialogue and little action. I stumble over myself because of the awkward echo between “said” and “said” and “said” and “said” and “said” and “said” and “said” and “said” and “said” and “said.” In 58 words, 10 of them are said. Readers recognize this awkward style and young writers try to fix it but they do so with synonyms. Below is the same passage but altered in the usual novice way.

Tom said: “I can lick you!”
“I’d like to see you try it,” replied the well-dressed boy.
“Well, I can do it,” responded Tom.
“No you can’t either,” he spoke.
“Yes I can,” Tom declared.
“No you can’t,” he informed Tom.
“I can,” Tom commented.
“You can’t,” the well-dressed boy told him.
“Can!” shouted Tom.
“Can’t!” he yelled.

It’s ridiculously wordy compared to the best patch and still awkward. Readers stumble over the words but they’re disguised with forced synonyms so it’s harder to spot why this is an awkward fix. Some of these synonyms (“shouted,” “yelled,” “declared” and “informed”) can be useful but their purpose here is to disguise “said” instead of showing how the speaker said the line. The dialogue-tags slow down the argument and so the lines lose impact. It’s no longer a snappy spat between boys, but a disagreement between stereotypically slow-witted country folk.

Mark Twain originally did it like this:

Tom said: “I can lick you!”
“I’d like to see you try it.”
“Well, I can do it.”
“No you can’t either.”
“Yes I can.”
“No you can’t.”
“I can.”
“You can’t.”
“Can!”
“Can’t!”

The speakers can still be traced by their side in the argument. Tom is the one insisting he can, and the well-dressed boy is denying it: the speakers are clear despite only one name being used, and the lines have punch. It’s the perfect solution for this dialogue. He-said-she-said slows down the text, which can be a useful trick but when people are arguing, often a quicker pace is a better representation of how it would be acted out. Charles Dickens was the most famous amateur actor in London, but he got sick before his audition to be a professional and so he became a creator instead of an interpreter; he always remembered his acting days as a writer though and often acted out what he wrote. If it was boring to do, he’d throw out the line or change it. I recommend doing this as it’ll help you understand the pacing of your writing. If you’re too proud to get up and make a fool of yourself while alone in your room, then at least read your stories out loud. You’ll hear where they are awkward.

Because most dialogue is too short to space out the he-said-she-saids, you need other tools to be clear about who is speaking without dialogue-tags: characterizing actions, scene-setting, and other narration. This is the best solution when you can afford a slower pace. JD Salinger in “For Esme—with Love and Squalor” did it like this:

The door banged open, without having been rapped on. X raised his head, turned it, and saw Corporal Z standing in the door. Corporal Z had been X’s jeep partner and constant companion from D-Day straight through five campaigns of the war. He lived on the first floor and he usually came up to see X when he had a few rumors or gripes to unload. He was a huge, photogenic young man of twenty-four. During the war, a national magazine had photographed him in Hurtgen Forest; he had posed, more than just obligingly, with a Thanksgiving turkey in each hand. “Ya writin’ letters?” he asked X. “It’s spooky in here, for Chrissake.” He preferred always to enter a room that had the overhead light on.

X turned around in his chair and asked him to come in, and to be careful not to step on the dog.

“The what?”

“Alvin. He’s right under your feet, Clay. How ’bout turning on the goddam light?”

Clay found the overhead-light switch, flicked it on, then stepped across the puny, servant’s-size room and sat down on the edge of the bed, facing his host. His brick-red hair, just combed, was dripping with the amount of water he required for satisfactory grooming. A comb with a fountain-pen clip protruded, familiarly, from the right-hand pocket of his olive-drab shirt. Over the left-hand pocket he was wearing the Combat Infantrymen’s Badge (which, technically, he wasn’t authorized to wear), the European Theatre ribbon, with five bronze battle stars in it (instead of a lone silver one, which was the equivalent of five bronze ones), and the pre-Pearl Harbor service ribbon. He sighed heavily and said, “Christ almighty.” It meant nothing; it was Army. He took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tapped one out, then put away the pack and rebuttoned the pocket flap. Smoking, he looked vacuously around the room. His look finally settled on the radio. “Hey,” he said. “They got this terrific show comin’ on the radio in a coupla minutes. Bob Hope, and everybody.”

X, opening a fresh pack of cigarettes, said he had just turned the radio off.

Undarkened, Clay watched X trying to get a cigarette lit. “Jesus,” he said, with spectator’s enthusiasm, “you oughta see your goddam hands. Boy, have you got the shakes. Ya know that?”

X got his cigarette lit, nodded, and said Clay had a real eye for detail.

This adds visual appeal and characterization and separates the saids and other dialogue-tags so when reading you don’t trip over awkwardness. Even without the dialogue-tags, it would be clear who was speaking, but Salinger uses them to pause between lines. This is what your teachers should’ve instructed instead of teaching you to use a thesaurus to find said synonyms. I keep order among tykes during 3rd grade writing classes taught by a 50-year-old woman who last wrote an essay for her Bachelor of Education in the 80s and she tells them not to use “said” and I groan. It is the solution of amateur writers.

When making a new paragraph, imagine it’s a camera turning its focus. When a new person talks, make a new paragraph and capture what they’re doing; always keep characters in view. When the next person talks, you start a new paragraph. People rarely just talk in real life and should do so even less in stories because talky writing is usually boring. Do you like reading Shakespeare? I don’t, but I like seeing it on stage with swords and emotion, and yet, though his dialogue is sharp and interesting (because that’s what plays rely on), it is boring to read. A director interprets his lines and minimal actions and settings to make an exciting production, but a writer must be creator and director and add the visual appeal: setting, actions, description. A novel should not be written like a play. Characters move about, interacting with the scenery, with props, with other people. Characters dart from overhang to overhang in the shopping district to escape the rain. They punch each other, hug each other, give each other titty-twisters. They bang open the door without rapping. They put their dirty boots up on the bed. And if readers see a character doing something, then your audience reads a quote, they will assume the character is speaking. If two characters interact during narration, then a dialogue-tag becomes necessary but if you have narration then the saids won’t echo as easily.

Above, during the second Mark Twain alteration, I noted that some synonyms are useful and I repeat, synonyms are useful when used properly. Just as people don’t stand around chatting, when speaking, they aren’t always calm or talking clearly. Sometimes they shout. Sometimes they whisper. Sometimes people mumble or mutter. These show us how a line of dialogue is said and gives us information about the character or the plot. If someone is whispering, they’re usually hiding a secret from nearby ears. A shy guy mumbles when in the presence of a big-bootied girl in hot pants. People shout during political arguments. If someone is informing you, they’re a know-it-all or correcting you. Teen girls gossiping about their best friend who slept with Maggie T’s boo last night while everyone was drunk as a skunk will prattle or cackle or babble or ramble. However, people are not always shouting or mumbling. Often people just say things, and that’s when “said” is the perfect word.

“Respond” and “reply” are tricky synonyms to use properly because they aren’t used just because a person is responding or replying to another line of dialogue, or else every line but the first will be a response or reply until you have a non sequitur, and these said-synonyms stand out more than “said” so just use that. I avoid “respond” and “reply” completely, but you might run into situations where they’re necessary – be careful.

Another common technique to replace “said” is by using an action, often smiling or one of those synonyms, as the dialogue tag. “‘Hello,’ she smiled” or “‘Hello,’ he waved.” Not only are these boring actions, they’re also wrong. Until waving your hand back and forth or curling your lips upward can make words come out of your mouth, you are wrong. Convention says you’re wrong so just follow the herd on this minor point. You can rebel in ways that will actually make an impact on the writing community like original characters and plots, but stop annoying mature readers with grammatical stupidities. If you want to use these actions, put a period at the end of your quote and start a new sentence. “‘Hello.’ She smiled.” “‘Hello.’ He waved.” They’re still boring but less annoying.

This list has some of the synonyms you might be tempted to use in place of “said.” I’ve bolded the ones that I like but only when they have purpose beyond hiding “said.”

Inquired
Mused
Commented
Informed
Told
Spoke
Said
Replied
Responded
Declared
Announced
Answered
Stated
Rambled
Chit-chatted
Babbled
Prattled
Whispered
Mumbled
Muttered
Uttered
Instructed
Corrected

 

Mr. Fountain

Why Nobody Can’t Write Good by A.W. Johns

There are a few basic principles in good writing of any sort, among which are simplicity, economy, color, and freshness. This has been true for centuries, despite changing literary fashions and the idiosyncrasies of individual authors. However, the student often concludes from incompetent teaching that there are no standards of excellence in writing, and that prudence only requires him to humor the conflicting whims of each professor. Or he may become a convert and embrace the cliches invented and made immortal by generations of pedagogues. He has been told that he must “make transitions” between sentences, and the way to do this is to haul a lot of cargo from one sentence into the next, which makes his paragraphs echo like a burial vault. And he must never a sentence with a preposition, nor sully the dignity of prose with contractions. To write with color he should use lots of adjectives and adverbs. And of course there is the constant assumption that big words are more eloquent and impressive than simple ones. For organization he must have an “Introduction, Body, and Conclusion,” which require that he must first “Tell the reader what he’s going to tell him,” and in the “Body” (or Cadaver) he must tell him, and in the “Conclusion” he must “Tell him what he has told him,” and so inflict all of his tediousness on the reader for a third time, like Shakespeare’s Dogberry. Thus the student first Introduces the reader to his cadaver, who has little information to offer, and the Conclusion is that there’s no hope of reviving this corpse.

 

The student who wishes to write well should begin by creating a bonfire of those hoary notions, and others. The most useful book of rhetoric I ever saw was called The Modern Stylists, edited by Donald Hall – a simple anthology of comments on writing by real authors who have demonstrated their ability, and thus their authority to advise, including Hemingway, Orwell, E.B. White, Mencken, Churchill and many others, among whom there was widespread agreement on basic principles. This does not mean “Rules” as inflexible as the laws of physics, for they were not brought down by Moses from the mountain. Even in grammar there are few rules which do not admit exceptions – such as when we write dialect (non-standard forms of English). And even educated people sometimes speak in fragments of sentences – thus when we write dialogue most of us choose to preserve the patterns of real speech.

 

The following specimens of good and bad prose were chosen to illustrate the four principles of economy, simplicity, color, and freshness. These are basic to good writing and speaking on the level of individual setences, though if you wish to write the next great American novel there are many other skills to acquire. I include clarity within the concept of simplicity, but if you feel that it requires separate consideration, I have no objection.