Adding to the forbidden words list.

[barbarienne]

Dear romance novelists,

Stop using "fisting" and "fisted" as synonyms for "making/made a fist." I know you're only using it because other romance novelists use it, which makes it trite. Romance novelists are the only people who use "to fist" as a verb with this definition. The rest of the English-speaking world is aware of the entirely different

Comments

[kristine_smith]

Wow.

On a similar note, I feel a little squidgy when folks post that they are going to throw up something--a photo, etc--on their blog. Either they know what that sounds like and they don't care, or they're tone deaf.

[barbarienne]

Sometimes it's oddly appropriate. ;-) I've vomited words onto the page more than once in my life.

[msagara]

I think that the phrase "throw up" isn't in use everywhere in the U.S. (or possibly Canada). Nick Mamatas was mocking someone ages ago for using it. I certainly knew it - and I use it interchangeably with vomit; another author said the same.

But a number of people who commented about it were unfamiliar with the usage, as well.

[burger_eater]

I know sex-act fisted is a transitive verb, but is romance-novel fisted transitive? How is it used?

[barbarienne]

"He fisted his hands in her hair."

"His hands fisted with anger."

You see what I mean, I hope. It just chucks me right out of the book every. single. time. I see it a lot in the two or three romance novels I typeset each month. They're all from one publisher. I have to assume there's some editor over there who is just letting this all go through with nary a query (or, worse, perhaps imposing it on the books).

[burger_eater]

::ahem::

LOL.

[kouaidou]

... this is the part where I just stare at the screen for a good ten minutes.

(Though I'll admit, the particular phrase "he fisted his hands in her hair" just makes me imagine him kneading her like a cat more than anything.)

[renakuzar]

I can't believe folks are that naieve.

[barbarienne]

Given the whole "tea bagger" thing, I can believe it.

However, just on the grounds that this is an inelegant, clunky verbing of a noun (I don't object to clever, interesting ones), I reject this word. When it keeps happening every couple of pages, constantly throwing me out of the spell of the book, then it's just plain bad writing.