Redundancy can kill writing. Who wants to read the same words over and over again. The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. Can't figure out different ways to express that someone has "said" something? There are at least a dozen choices in Roget's Super Thesaurus. Pick one: utter, speak, tell, assert, give, voice, mouth, pronounce, vocalize, remark, phrase, state, articulate.
What reads best? He said he was going to the store; or, He mouthed to his wife as she was intensely conversing with her best friend on the phone, "I'm g-o-i-n-g to the s-t-o-r-e." Which one gives you a clearer picture?
The words are there. Use them. When I edit my writing or the writing of others, I go through it and circle any words I see more than once in the same general area. If you're using the same word on the first page of a report and then again on page 5, no big deal. But if you have the same word in every paragraph - or worse, in sentence after sentence after sentence - please choose something else. Your readers will be grateful - whether they are your parents or a publishing agent.
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