Irritating phrases

[Hallandporridgeoats]

I can be reading a great book, and then the author will introduce one of these phrases that I find so irritating...and so many seem to use them.

"She was fiercely independent" or "he was so very tired" or "she loved him so very much". Aargh.

Do you have phrases that you feel this way about?

Definitely padding.

Usually through a kitchen with a scrubbed wooden table and mismatched chairs.

If you read too much Heinlein you soon get fed up of Rugged Individualists. With particular reference to the difficulty of leading a group of them.

His bowels hit the toilet bowl? Wow, he has real problems if his colon has dropped out. 😂

All the commercial fiction writers seem to have done the same course advising them that more is more, and especially not to use “said”. So, after she had inspected her golden waterfall tresses and flashing jade-green eyes in the ornate antique mirror, she breathed (as above), murmured, muttered, stuttered, uttered, cried, sighed, pronounced, declared, whispered, professed, opined - it reads like a primary schooler with a thesaurus.