Said is used by almost everyone like is largely limited to people who were born after 1970 (or 1965, or maybe 1960 this isn’t an exercise in linguistic demography). The plot of the comedy is often concerned with an illicit love affair or some other scandal, but is generally less important than its witty dialogue. ” Using specific and interesting diction where appropriate can help readers better understand enjoy the piece they’re reading. In the everyday speech of most people, we really only use a couple of dialogue tags when discussing direct discourse: said and like. Consider how “queried,” “interrogated,” “wondered,” or “inquired” each mean something slightly different and more specific than the more general “ask ed. F or this reason, many writers will use more specific dialogue tags (words used to “tag” or introduce a quote) that explain the type of speaking-for example, instead of “said,” writers can use “asked,” “replied, ” “yelled,” “cried,” “whispered,” and so on.Īnd within these categories, there are further and even more specific synonyms. If every dialogue scene sounded like, “He said, she said, they said,” the reader would get bored fairly quickly, and they would miss important detail s about how the character is speaking and what they’re feeling. Oftentimes, this search for the “perfect word” is a matter of understanding how small distinctions in meaning and connotation can contribute to a larger mood or tone, or give the audience more specific details.įor example, dialogue is a common feature in narrative writing, so many creative writers will try to find synonyms for the word “said” to avoid monotony and repetition. In general, reading broadly is a strong strategy for developing and expanding one’s vocabulary reading texts similar in style and purpose can help one gain a better sense of what diction “works” in that context. shrieked, groaned, squeaked) Emotion (e.g. If you need more inspiration, you can continue looking through entries for different words until you find the right one. yelled, shouted, bellowed, screamed, whispered) Tone or pitch (e.g. Similarly, for many word processing programs, you can right-click on a word to find synonyms. Which dialogue tag are YOU Find out in just a minute. Instruct students to choose words from the Dialogue Tags Handout. While writing, i f you don’t know a synonym for a word, you can look it up in a thesaurus. synonyms for said that effectively communicate to your reader while adding excitement. In a lot of older novels, you’ll see people write said John rather than John said. It’s the writer’s job to ensure that the dialogue used within a conversation not only fits th. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.Īnother simple but effective way of finding the right word is to think about subtle differences between synonyms. Synonyms for said and askedare fine here and there, but using them constantly is a hallmark of amateur writing. Mind your dialogue tagsConversations are an important part of storytelling and are used to reveal a wealth of information: from a bonding moment, to a backstory, to a plot twist, and everything in-between. tags unaligned words in the hypothesis are marked as untranslated if. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. synonym detection or, if no linguistic analysis is available, surface forms. On this page youll find 50 synonyms, antonyms, and words related to dialogue, such as: communication, conference, conversation, dialogue/dialog, discourse, and discussion. Using said instead of suggested or answered feels a lot less compelling.

'Answered' is fine, and 'suggested' is basically inoffensive too. These tags also slow us down because they’re repetitive. Complaints about alternative dialogue tags are more about things like 'exclaimed', 'sighed', or 'ejaculated'.

To help you find that perfect synonym to inject action and emotion into your. Dialogue tags can sometimes be a crutch for vivid, voice-y speech.

Dialogue tags synonym