Habitual Collocations

Collocations are a great idea really. No need to think too hard, and they make it so simple to become just another one of run of the mill. Some of the all time favourite collocations include ‘completely satisfied’, ‘excruciating pain’, ‘burst into tears’ and ‘vaguely remember’. Then there are the colourful such as ‘red Ferrari’, ‘a blue fit, and ‘green thumb.’

So no need to go into a list here. Well, not until I started reading people’s profiles on Twitter. I was ‘filled with horror’ to discover that literary folk such as writers and readers of ‘high brow fiction’ were falling into the very passé collocation trap.

After ‘rampantly collecting’ a hundred ‘avid readers’, I kept looking and of course stumble across thousands of ‘aspiring writers’ and a goodly number of ‘lifelong readers’. Then one of my favourites, ‘published author’ and a new one on me, ‘repped YA novelist’. I just love that one!

I got tired of ‘speculative fiction’ and ‘urban fantasy’ writers and instead concentrated on ‘wanna be authors’, ‘fledgling authors’, ‘single mom bloggers’ and ‘evolutionary thinkers’. Of course I was particularly interested in the ‘book lovers’, ‘book worms’, ‘bookaholics’ and ‘passionate readers’.

Anyway, enough research. But please hear my plea! Readers and writers, authors and bloggers, please use your imagination and skill and find something to describe yourself that isn’t a hackneyed collocation or even worse, a cliché.

So, please don’t turn a blind eye.

Books By Derek Haines
Derek's Vandal Blog
www.derekhaines.ch
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