Verbal Tic/Literature

Examples of Verbal Tic in Literature include:

• Sparhawk from The Elenium used called pretty much anyone he didn't know "neighbor". It's explained as him just trying to be friendly. When asked he didn't just call them friend, he replied that they weren't necessarily his friend. Justified, in that given his profession, they were just as likely to go all stabbity on him as greet him warmly.
• Sartain Stradius from Felsic Current, says "See" at the beginning of sentences, or at the end, or after a comma. Basically anywhere. And often, see.
• Mariana from Icarus Phaethon's The First Breath, with her idiosyncratic habit of beginning her sentences with "Aha".
• Padfoot in Summerland interjects his chuckle, described as paper dry, into almost everything he says.
• Hasimir Fenring of Frank Herbert's Dune tends to pepper his dialog with phrases such as "hmmmm" and "hmmmm-aaah" for no apparent reason. However, this is actually a plot point - Fenring and his wife have a private code disguised as humming, allowing them to hide a conversation with one another in the midst of an overt conversation with someone else. However, it sounds like a verbal tic to other characters.
• Redwall:
  • The bally hares, wot!
  • Asssssssmodeussssss the sssnake alssso hasss the odd habit of hissssssing hisss own name between sssentencesss... *Assssssmodeussssssss*... Ego issssssuesss?
  • Asssssssmodeussssss' dessscendant, Balissssss, doesss the sssame thing. Balisssssssss...
  • The bats have spent so long living in caves that they're now in the habit of providing their own echo, echo, echo ...
  • Have you already noted Friar Bellows? Good, good.
  • "I Am The Law"
  • An' all dem molers, bo hurr
  • This is just grand- Gurgan Spearback, as well as a tribe of hedgehogs near Martin's old home in the north.
• The Paul Jennings short story Without a Shirt concerns a kid who can't speak without ending his sentences with the titular phrase.
• Holden Caulfield thought what he'd do was, he that that he'd have a few. He really does.
• Stephen King's IT: Bill had a stutter as a child, which came back when he had to return to the Town with a Dark Secret.
• Desperation had "Sherrif" Collie Entragian who had a habit of adding "TAK!" to the end of random sentences. He was Possessed by the Ultimate Evil at the time
• The Dark Tower, especially in book five. Say thankya and hear me well.
• Anne of Green Gables,
  • Rachel Lynde, that's what.
  • Well now, don't forget about Matthew Cuthbert!
• From Discworld:
  • Carcer Dun of Night Watch is arguably one of these - he punctuates his speech with an "irritatingly patronising chortle", which is always rendered in the text as "haha." We also have Captain Tilden, what. And Snouty, hnah, don't forget him. Not tomention...Captain Swing.
  • Brother Nhumrod of Small Gods has a habit of repeating the last few words of the previous speaker. Many of Terry Pratchett's characters (especially his villains) have this sort of verbal tic, whether by the in-sertion of mispla-ced pauses orbyhaving... the speedof the... words be . . . curiouslyrandom or just by using a lot of --ing Unusual Euphemisms.
  • And E-Edward D-D'eath, and--aha, aha--Dragon King of Arms.
  • In The Fifth Elephant, Inigo Skimmer has a habit of saying "mmm", "mmhm", or some variant thereof every few words.
  • Thud: hWell, hwe hwould have all been lost, sureleah, hwithout Sir Reynold Stitched?
  • Soul Music: Hat hat hat.
  • The Truth: Mr. Tulip thinks you have a --ing great trope by the way.
  • I comma square bracket tropers name square bracket solemnly swear by square bracket tropers deity of choice square bracket comma that we should not forget the proper pronunciation of the oath of his slash her square bracket delete as appropriate square bracket square bracket name of reigning monarch square bracket Ankh-Morpork City Watch comma so help me square bracket tropers deity of choice square bracket full stop
• In the third book of The Chronicles of Narnia, it was established that Calormenes always follow any mention of the Tisroc ^[1] with the phrase "May he live forever", usually rendered in parentheses to indicate just how unconscious it is. When talking horse Bree omits this little phrase, the protagonist rather nervously calls him on it, to which the horse replies: "Why should I say that, when he won't live forever and I don't want him to anyway?"
• Professor Umbridge in Harry Potter frequently clears her throat (usually to interrupt someone), rendered as "hem hem." And then there's Ron's "Bloody hell!"
• Gollum in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In this case, the character is actually named after his catchphrase. He also addresses his words to the Precccioussssss frequently.
• Bonzo Madrid of Ender's Game, sabe?
• Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court has the narrator give Sandy a suggestion of giving one of the characters in her tale a verbal tic of saying "bejabbers," to help him know who's talking.
• Jacob Two-Two, because he has two brothers and two sisters and two parents, yes, two brothers, two sisters, and two parents, says everything twice. He says everything two times. Nobody ever hears him the first time. No, nobody ever hears him the first time.
• Offscreen, in Spider Robinson's novel Stardance: the narrator mentions a character who unthinkingly replies "There you go" to everything anyone says. By the end of their acquaintance, the narrator is considering dumping him out an airlock. "There he goes, I kept thinking, there he goes ... "
• Shirley Jackson, in her loosely autobiographical Raising Demons, describes her daughter Sally going through a phase, at about four, where she repeated the key word in every sentence: "Well, I told Amy's mother that I did not have any breakfast, breakfast, because my mommy did not wake up and give it to me, mommy. And Amy's mother said I was a poor baby, baby, and she gave me cereal and fruit, cereal, and she said there, dear, and she gave me chocolate milk, and I did remember to say thank you, remember." (Of course Jackson was gifted at capturing the Verbal Tic s of small children's speech: "You bad bad webbis.")
• Blagden, the white raven from the Inheritance Cycle, frequently yells, "Wyrda!" (which means "fate" in the Ancient Language).
• In The D Case, the narrator points out that Jules Maigret even pauses mid-sentence to puff at his pipe during a telepathic conversation.
• Walder Frey in A Song of Ice and Fire often makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a grunt: "Heh".
• Kenneth 'Type of Thing' Hindle in The Pale King.
• J.R.Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood character, Vishous tends to substitute other words with, "true" or otherwise use the word as a sentence-closer; "You've got my back, true?" or "We'll get this done, true."
• John Ringo's Poertena from David Weber's Empire of Man series. And later his expy as Portana into Ringo's Looking Glass Series.
  • Pock.
• Hallo, I say, Bertie Wooster has millions of these, don't you know, what? Right ho! (On a lesser level, there's Jeeves, who manages to interject a respectful "sir" into nearly every line he says.)
• Mistress Coyle of Chaos Walking ends almost all her sentences the same way, my girl.
• Jay Gatsby has a interesting one, old sport.

1. ↑ May he live forever.