Weirdly Specific Verbs

[Queenfisher]

When I'm writing (and reading), I constantly look for better and more precise (concise, and awesome) words that most effectively describe a picture of a scene I have in my head. I don't always succeed, being a non-English speaker. I can use simpler synonyms, of course, and I don't overuse fancy words at all. I do it rarely like adding spice to a dish.

But sometimes -- sometimes -- I appreciate a perfectly-honed word that can get bizarrely specific. For curiosity's sake if not to actually use in my writing.

Like chunter (=grumble, both as a motion and speech), chirrup (=speak in a high-pitched voice), welter (=to move in a turbulent fashion), to welt (=to strike hard), to bark something (=to scrape skin by hitting along something), to gee (=to command a horse or a person to go faster), to keek (=to glance surreptitiously), to gurn (=to make a grotesque face), to skite (=to move quickly and forcefully, especially when glancing off a surface, like rain skiting off a raincoat), and etc.

My main problem lies in the fact that I only find these words while reading fiction, and since these words are rare already, finding them becomes a treasure hunt. Do any of you find at times words that are just so weird and specific, you kind of feel like writing them down simply because you think -- one day, this word might come useful? (Even though it never does T_T).

Can you share such gems please ^^?

 

[Queenfisher]

Oh, and just to make an example for writing purposes:

When recently I was researching what it's called when you "park" your horse in an ancient era (you know, when you tie it... to a horizontal post... whatever that thing is called) -- I found out that it's called... "parking" your horse. Which is such a downer! I thought it'd be a more fancy word, because in all seriousness I won't actually write about my character "parking" a horse, come on. Just imagine what a horse parking lot looks like...

Another example was when I researched how it's called when a mother cat carries a kitten in its mouth. The word is "scruffing", and not only cats can do it. Anytime anyone grabs a cat by the skin on its nape of the neck -- it's called "scruffing".

The more you know...

And lastly -- a question. I want to describe this type of pose a character takes.

Do any of you know how this pose is called? (It's not crossing one's legs, obviously. But what is it?) Or how to describe it with least amount of words so that it's not clunky, yet comes across quickly and effectively?

 

[RepresentingCaution]

My favorite verb is copulate ?

 

[Queenfisher]

My favorite verb is copulate ?

What about synonyms? ^^

 

[Alienix]

My favorite verb is copulate ?

What a beautiful word

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Copulation often leads to insemination. If ovulation happened recently, it can also lead to gestation.

 

[Moshi]

Like chunter (=grumble, both as a motion and speech), chirrup (=speak in a high-pitched voice), welter (=to move in a turbulent fashion), to welt (=to strike hard), to bark something (=to scrape skin by hitting along something), to gee (=to command a horse or a person to go faster), to keek (=to glance surreptitiously), to gurn (=to make a grotesque face), to skite (=to move quickly and forcefully, especially when glancing off a surface, like rain skiting off a raincoat), and etc.

For what it's worth, I knew zero of those words (and my spellchecker doesn't recognize either keek or gurn).

And lastly -- a question. I want to describe this type of pose a character takes.

Do any of you know how this pose is called? (It's not crossing one's legs, obviously. But what is it?) Or how to describe it with least amount of words so that it's not clunky, yet comes across quickly and effectively?

I'm pretty sure that there's no dedicated term for the pose, at least not one that isn't technical, so you'll have to describe it.

I would just call it "sitting with one leg across the other", "sitting with one leg (put) up", or the rather verbose and specific "sitting with one ankle resting on the other knee."

 

[Queenfisher]

Copulation often leads to insemination. If ovulation happened recently, it can also lead to gestation.

So many -tion words. Too Latin for my brain to handle.

Plus, they're not exactly verbs >_>

For what it's worth, I knew zero of those words (and my spellchecker doesn't recognize either keek or gurn).

Mine doesn't recognize skite. But I swear I read these words in real English books, that's where I usually get them from. "Gurn" specifically, I've met it on several occasions. It's a bizarre word.

Also, this is just a tip of my list of bizarre words. I collect them for sport!

 

[Goswick]

One of my favourite verbs is defenestrate - specifically the action of throw someone out of a window. Unfortunately, I won't be able to use that one in my story for a while yet...

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Plus, they're not exactly verbs >_>

OK, I'll fix it for you!
I copulated with my husband, and he inseminated me. I was ovulating at the time, and now I am gestating. ?

 

[JayDirex]

"He sat cross-legged" is the idiomatic way of saying the action. You won't find it in a dictionary, it's just the way we talk. and no spellchecker or grammarly will tell you it's wrong, because it is not. It's just the way we speak and call the action: "cross-legged" @Queenfisher

"Joe sat cross-legged waiting for Diane to enter the room."

 

[GDLiZy]

It's not a good idea to write rarely used words because it will take the focus away from the story and into the word itself. It also will tick the readers off if you used too fancy of a word that they needed to open up a dictionary.

 

[Saileri]

One of my favourite verbs is defenestrate - specifically the action of throw someone out of a window. Unfortunately, I won't be able to use that one in my story for a while yet...

I've used that term a lot when hosting DnD sessions. You know, making an NPC char come to PC char in a pub due to some argument and threat the PC to defenestrate them out of the pub. Best part is when the player doesn't know the word and makes his PC actually act so. The demonstration is always priceless.

As for me, I actually keep a record of interesting words I come across, since I read a lot of books. Other than that, it's just looking around synonyms and stuff like that. Like when I was designing a class for litRPG that revolves around lovemaking, I browsed tons of words linked to love, lust, etc., just so it wasn't just repeated Love-smth.

Although overusing "fancy" words is not something I am personally too fond of. It has to fit the situation, the feeling of it, the atmosphere or have some kind of a reason of being there, if the story itself isn't previously full of them.

As for the sitting thing, I guess people listed some nice ways already, guess I'll just share whatever comes to my mind.
"Saileri sat in his office chair with a soft thump. Placing his left leg over the right in perpendicular position, he leaned to the front in anticipation."

 

[Queenfisher]

Thanks everyone for answering. And especially thanks for helping with that "leg-crossing" thing! Stars to everyone!

But I realized that in general, my OP was a bit too vague and rambly, so it didn't come across as well as it could have. Sorry.

I do understand that using fancy words would distract a reader, but fancy is not exactly what I was talking about there. Plus, I mention in the first post that cool, weirdly-specific words are like spice. You add them if you know what you're doing. I'm not advocating for their overuse -- only for the fact that a lot of people like myself -- non-native English speakers -- struggle with vocabulary that some other people (native-English speakers) simply have a natural access to. I have to translate to English the stuff that I write in my native tongue. Most of the times, I feel very much like a robot -- not knowing exactly what I am translating, and struggling to make it seem more or less natural in English.

Good vocabulary is an enormous help for that.

So when I am curious about such words, I don't mean words like "defenestrate" or "copulate" however amazing they are and good for my overall enrichment ^^. These are the examples of words I truly consider "fancy". Both of them are Latin-based, and I can use either of them in my native language as well: копуляция and дефенестрация. They mean exactly the same thing there as they do in English. The perks of them being Latin . But with that commonality of Latin comes the lack of a certain... um... uniqueness? nativeness? spice? I dunno.

The words I'm looking for -- and I seem to be the only one like that here T_T -- are what you'd call Anglo-Saxon words that are somewhat unique to English and I would never have the luxury of knowing unless I encountered them in books, rarely as that happens. I make lists of such words. But I wondered if anyone else also had lists of such words, and if we could perhaps share those. Several minds are better than one.

For example, "scribble" -- is such word for me. (It's also Latin, mind you, but had been Anglicized a long time ago and shed most of its Latinness). And yet, the chance to meet "scribble" in any given book for a non-English writer to learn? Next to zero.

Also, "daze", "soar", "plummet", "gobble", "chug", "idle", "doodle", "prattle", etc -- are other great examples of such specific, amazing-sounding words for writers to spice up their writing with.

So it's not about these words being "fancy" at all, at least to me. It's about them being hidden from foreign-language writers who have bad memory, or a thin vocabulary, or simply no time for winnowing (another cool word!) through countless books in flimsy hopes of finding a gem of a word there. Maybe someone else had already done that and they could share with the rest of us?

That was all that I meant by it really -).

Oh, and synonym vocabs don't help. They group super-technical and dialect along with common and slang. Not a great aid for fiction writing, and I flopped pretty hard with those several times.


tl;dr: non-English writers struggle with vocabulary and trying to sound less rigid in our writing by using less really "fancy" words (Latin-based for most part) and trying to find the more native and cozy, homey-sounding Anglo-Saxon, weirdly-specific verbs instead. But fishing for such rarer words in books is very time-consuming and not always successful.

So if you have a few good, amazing storytelling words to share, please tell!

 

[yansusustories]

non-English writers struggle with vocabulary and trying to sound less rigid in our writing by using less really "fancy" words (Latin-based for most part) and trying to find the more native and cozy, homey-sounding Anglo-Saxon, weirdly-specific verbs instead. But fishing for such rarer words in books is very time-consuming and not always successful.

To be honest, I've noticed that a good way to sound more natural is to just not write in your native language and then translate it but to instead write in English right off the bat. Because otherwise, you'll start out with something that is specific to your language (especially idioms but some grammatical things can also be difficult in translation or just syntax overall) and have a hard time making it sound good in English (if you haven't actually learned to translate or at least quite a bit of experience in it that is). I personally feel that you don't have as much of a problem if you do it the other way around. It's hard in the beginning since you'll scramble for words a lot (in which case, I'll simply consult a dictionary or - even better - a forum that's specific for my native language and English with native speakers of both languages) but the longer you do it, the less of a problem it is.

Also, in general, my tip is always to just try to get as much English input as you can. Every novel you want to read, movie or series you want to watch, every game you play: Do it in English. Sooner or later, stuff sticks with you. Also, I think there are differences between genres. You'll get a different type of vocabulary from high fantasy for example than from a contemporary chick-lit (Is that the term in English as well?) novel.

Edit: I think my general opinion is that it's actually less the words themselves but the reliance on a translation that might be the root of making the text sound 'rigid'. It's for sure the problem I had when I tried it that way in the beginning.

 

[Saileri]

The words I'm looking for -- and I seem to be the only one like that here T_T -- are what you'd call Anglo-Saxon words that are somewhat unique to English and I would never have the luxury of knowing unless I encountered them in books, rarely as that happens. I make lists of such words. But I wondered if anyone else also had lists of such words, and if we could perhaps share those. Several minds are better than one.

For example, "scribble" -- is such word for me. (It's also Latin, mind you, but had been Anglicized a long time ago and shed most of its Latinness). And yet, the chance to meet "scribble" in any given book for a non-English writer to learn? Next to zero.

Also, "daze", "soar", "plummet", "gobble", "chug", "idle", "doodle", "prattle", etc -- are other great examples of such specific, amazing-sounding words for writers to spice up their writing with.

Oh well, in my case the words you've presented are part of the usual language
I mean, maybe not a lot of them are instantly popping up when I'm writing about something, but there's always this little tingle that I remember seeing a word perfectly describing what I meant in the past, so I check for them. Although, soar, gobble, chug, idle are kinda daily occurances for me.
I can't think of any example on the spot right now, those always just come to me naturally when in context.

 

[yansusustories]

As I was just looking a word up, I reencountered something that might help with finding the words that you're looking for: The sites of dictionaries.
Lots of them discuss specific words in a certain timeframe (e.g., I just spotted "The Words of the Week" on Merriam Webster) and some (not sure about the English ones actually, but one in my native language does) also have the option to send out newsletters that discuss words, phrases, and grammatical questions. Normally, these kinds of articles are both informative and pretty fun to read and not all the words will be ones that you commonly encounter. So maybe there could be some of those 'specific verbs' in there for you if you scroll through one or two of those on a regular basis?

 

[Queenfisher]

Thank you guys so much!

@yansusustories, I am actually subscribed to Merriam-Webster to receive their Word of the Day and other letters regarding words! And for that purpose, I am also weirdly fond of reading English dictionary as a past time. Which is weird according to some people, but I am a a linguo-geek, so it's all good.

The latest specific word I found like this was welter (2nd definition) -- which means "to lie in a pool of blood without care or help". A very... um... useful word, I guess. For a veeery specific situation! Words like that are unmanageable for any normal person, of course, but so entertaining to collect for a word-ology-geek. Plus, it has an interesting etymology, being closely related to "wallow" -- which is actually a rather usable, normal word!

Also thanks for advice on writing in regards to translating from native language. To be fair, I am not writing anything in my mother tongue -- I write straight in English. Yet my thoughts are in my native tongue, so the translation happens in the mind-to-typing process. It's still very hard because my mind conjures up much cooler stuff that my English skills can account for. And, hurrying up after my imagination, I have to cope with kind of pedestrian language. So my characters only say, look, walk, and stand in first drafts. More complex or simply nicer words like wonder/reply/tell, glance/peer/regard, stroll/pace, and dawdle/loiter/while away only happen in the editing process. And it takes me so much time to do because unless I chance to remember these "fancier" words, my default writing language is pretty drab.

Which is ugh.

@Saileri, and this makes me realize that what I want to call these "weirdly-specific words" is kinda "Words That Are Not In the Active Vocabulary At the Moment". Like, I know the word "soar" perfectly fine -- but most of the time, when I write, I can't call it to my head just by willing it. I have to look it up, and if there's too many words I need to look up, I end up spending hours if not days just on looking words up rather than actually writing. That's frustrating, because I feel like without these words, my stories are insipid.

For example, in the last few days, I happened upon these words in the books I read:

- hefty
- wry
- verify
- tweak
- rueful
- dubious
- scrupulous

I mean, these are not hard or super-fancy words. I know them already! They're just not in the Active Vocabulary, so they pop up at me in other books because I would totally use them in my own writing, if only I remembered them. So I make lists whenever I read something, and then, because these lists are kinda random and disorganized, I forget these words again after a while, and the whole cycle of being frustrated with my limited vocab repeats.

Sigh. I still believe there might be others like me out there. I hope to find them one day and share our pain together ^^.

@flucket
This is great, thanks!

------------------------------------------

Anyway, thanks again for all your help! If you find something else of this sort, please tell me! I am very nervous and a bit ashamed of my word usage (I feel it's fake because it's so dependent on word lists), so I am always looking for ways to improve it.

Oh, and I am currently working on a non-fiction project for SH to maybe publish my word lists for people like me to use. I'll see where it takes me because, so far, it's just super dull. Assembling word lists in categories is just -- so -- labor-intensive and mind-numbing! But at least I'll have my word lists published somewhere for future use !

 

[Saileri]

I'll leave you a small present then @Queenfisher.

Nice circle
Nice words 1
Nice words 2

 

[Queenfisher]

Thanks! This is kind of what I'm talking about only... for all the categories of words! -)). I tried to go to the site mentioned on those images, but couldn't find where such info-graphics are... where did you find them, and is there more of their kind?