Verbal Tic / Literature

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• Jess Ferret from Margaret Mahy's Alchemy really loves playing with words, almost to the point of it becoming a tic.
  You’d only be wasting your time, when you could be out tasting your wine.
• Anne of Green Gables:
  • Rachel Lynde tends to end her sentences with "that's what".
  • Matthew Cuthbert typically begins his sentences with "Well, now...".
  • Similarly to Mrs. Lynde, Cornelia Bryant often punctuates her sentences with "believe me".
• K. A. Applegate seems to like using this trope for a very specific type of character. In Animorphs David has a tendency to say the name of the person he's talking to several times in a single conversation, usually when he's trying to be threatening. Later in Applegate's second series Everworld, David's Expy Senna exhibits a very similar tic.
  • Ax, an Andalite, is telepathic, has no mouth in his normal form and is a bit of a Sense Freak, so whenever he morphs into a human he starts playing with his sounds. Ownds. Suh-OWND-zzz.
• Beast Tamer:
  • Like many a Cat Girl before and since, Kanade tends to pepper "Nyas" (Meows) into her speech, sometimes integrating them with actual words like "Nyaice" instead of "Nice"
  • Luna tends to end sentences with "nanoda", or just "noda" for short. It's one of the things that sets her apart from her sister Sora, who is more of a Third-Person Person.
• 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."
• Benton from The Black Fox of Beckham has a habit of repeating every sentence he says, sometimes with minor variations.
• Bounders: Neeka, the junior ambassador who works with the protagonists in The Tundra Trials, constantly says things that her translator box translates as "Oh!" and "No!" When she gets upset, she can hardly say anything else.
• Holden Caulfield thought what he'd do was, he that that he'd have a few. He really does.
• The Cat Who... Series: In book #14 (The Cat Who Wasn't There), Grace Utley has a habit of periodically ending her sentences in "... yes!".
• Mistress Coyle of Chaos Walking ends almost all her sentences the same way, my girl.
• In the third book of The Chronicles of Narnia, it was established that Calormenes always follow any mention of the Tisroc ^note May he live forever. 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?"
• The Chronicles of Prydain: Gurgi will add 'ing' to nounds like "Smitings and bitings" or "Sneakings and peekings."
• Downplayed in "Clockpunk and the Vitalizer": Clockpunk twice says phrases three times in a row when stressed, like her Come on come on COME ON.
• In A Confederacy of Dunces, Jones (who is a bit of a Jive Turkey) interlards his sentences with exclamations of "Ooo-wee" and "Woah!"
• 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.
• Catherine Cookson, an author from Oop North, has her characters repeat themselves. Oh, aye, they repeat themselves.
• Darcy And Gran Dont Like Babies: Gran starts a lot of her sentences with "I don't much like" or "I believe".
• The Dark Tower, especially in book five. Say thankya and hear me well.
• In The D Case, the narrator points out that Jules Maigret even pauses mid-sentence to puff at his pipe during a telepathic conversation.
• Desperation had "Sherrif" Collie Entragian who had a habit of adding "TAK!" to the end of random sentences. He was possessed at the time
• 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. Captain Swing also exhibits afunnyway...of speaking.
  • 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.
  • Soul Music: Mr. Clete's mirthless laugh: "Hat hat hat."
  • The Truth: Mr. Tulip's habit of dropping "—ing" into his sentences turns out to be this when it's revealed he really is just saying "--ing".
  • In Snuff, Lord Rust has picked up a habit of adding "what" to the end of sentences. It annoys Vimes greatly.
• Keri the Pakhar in the Doctor Who New Adventures novel Legacy and the New Series Adventures novel Big Bang Generation, yeah?
• 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.
• Sparhawk from The Elenium calls anyone he didn't know very well as "neighbor." He says he's just trying to be friendly. When asked why he doesn't just call them friend, he says that they aren't actually his friend yet, so he doesn't know if he'll have to kill them at some point.
• Bonzo Madrid of Ender's Game, sabe?
• Sartain Stradius from Felsic Current, says "See" at the beginning of sentences, or at the end, or after a comma. Anywhere. And often, see.
• Isaac Asimov's "Galley Slave": Professor Ninheimer has a habit of pausing in his speech, included as an "-uh-" between words. The narrative explains that his hesitation causes people to believe that he takes considerable time evaluating the possibility of even impossible ideas.
• Dojango Roze from the Garrett, P.I. novels is actually a good example, because he actually says his favorite word an awful lot, actually.
• The Golden Hamster Saga: Nibbles the rabbit from The Haunting of Freddy stammers the first word or two of each sentence, then jumps into the air and says the whole sentence without difficulty.
• In Goodbye, Mr. Chips, as Chips gets older he makes many pauses punctuated with an "umph" in his speech.
• Mariana from Icarus Phaethon's Goodbye, Mr. Descartes, with her idiosyncratic habit of beginning her sentences with "Aha".
• Jay Gatsby has a interesting one, old sport.
• Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World: Miria adds "desu" to the end of her sentences, but only when she speaks in "Brahim".
• Tsuruya in Haruhi Suzumiya said the word "nyoro"^note Japanese for tilde (~) only once in the anime, though she uses it more often in the light novels, in which she is a more prominent character. This, too, has become a Memetic Mutation, with the fan-comic character "Churuya", a chibi version of Tsuruya that says "nyoro~n" at the end of every strip. However, she does regularly add an additional 's' at the end of her words. Whether this is a lisp due to her snaggletooth or just a way of talking is anyone's guess. She is also known for 'megas(sa)'.
• 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!" ^note not in the books
• To be blunt, the Rat in Hear the Wind Sing.
• High School D×D: Kuroka, as a nekomata, loves to behave as a cat, which includes ending her sentences with "-nyan".
• Gollum in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In this case, the character is actually named after his catchphrase, described as "a horrible swallowing noise in his throat." He also addresses his words to the Precccioussssss frequently.
  • Also in The Lord of the Rings, Treebeard tosses a "Hoom, hmm" somewhere into many of his sentences.
• From the Horatio Hornblower novels The Happy Return to Flying Colours, Hornblower has a penchant of answering any remarks addressed to him with "ha, h'm." When he says this to Lady Barbara, she instantly pegs it as a 'useful noncommittal sound' which he uses to avoid expressing emotion or getting chatty. Although she apologizes on realizing she's broken a shield of his, when they actually marry she evidently feels free enough to tease him until he stops doing it. When he unconsciously falls back on it in The Commodore, he's so pleased with himself for rediscovering it that he drags it out for several seconds while talking with an unfortunate junior officer.
• Blagden, the white raven from the Inheritance Cycle, frequently yells, "Wyrda!" (which means "fate" in the Ancient Language).
• INVADERS of the ROKUJYOUMA!?: Karama and Korama end their sentences with "~ho".
• 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.
• 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.)
• Detective Logan from the Kadingir series usually utters/yells/grunts "Nyè!" to express anything from surprise, to anger, to frustration, to simple boredom. The catchphrase itself is an homage to the Catalan dub of Blackadder.
• Every time the glass cat in Land of Oz novel The Patchwork Girl of OZ mentions its pink brains, the phrase "you can see 'em work!" quickly follows, as the cat loves to brag about them.
• Karen from Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World often repeats words and phrases when she talks, especially when she's uncomfortable.
• In Midnight's Children, Naseem gains a tendency to pepper her sentences with "whatsitsname" after her marriage. Saleem speculates:
  I don't know how my grandmother came to adopt the term whatsitsname as her leitmotif, but as the years passed it invaded her sentences more and more often. I like to think of it as an unconscious cry for help... as a seriously-meant question. [Naseem] was giving us a hint that, for all her presence and bulk, she was adrift in the universe. She didn't know, you see, what it was called.
• In The Neverending Story, the night hob Vooshvazool is really fond of saying "hoo hoo". It could be just a generic trait of his species though, since other night hobs do not appear in the novel.
• North To Benjamin: The wolf Edgar and Benjamin encounter on their way to Victoria in West Dawson seems to have a habit of saying some words three times in a row.
• Kenneth 'Type of Thing' Hindle in The Pale King.
• Nancy from Pollyanna has a penchant for repeating what she said twice at the end of the sentence, she does, she does. Another verbal tic of hers is "My stars and stockings".
• John Ringo's Poertena from the Prince Roger series (co-written with David Weber. And later his expy as Portana into Ringo's Into the Looking Glass Series, both of which frequently use the Unusual Euphemism "Pock".
• 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." (Jackson was gifted at capturing the verbal tics of small children's speech: "You bad bad webbis.")
• 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 ...
  • 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.
• In Riverwind the Plainsman, the eccentric soothsayer Catchflea tends to pepper his sentences with "yes".
• Timmy in Sea Change 2016 seems to stutter on some of his words.
• Both a Fauxreigner, "Gunther" and "Madame Lulu" from A Series of Unfortunate Events say "please" in almost every sentence.
• Tori in Alice Oseman's Solitaire has one. It's funny because it's true.
• Walder Frey in A Song of Ice and Fire often makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a grunt: "Heh".
  • Also Hodor, hodor. It's the only word he knows, hodor, like Gollum above he is actually named after this, his real name being Walder.
• In The Sorrows of Satan, the Earl of Elton says "Ha-ha-ha!" a lot.
• Spellster: Tracker often ends his sentences with "Yes?" even when they aren't meant as questions.
• 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 ... "
• Padfoot in Summerland interjects his chuckle, described as paper dry, into almost everything he says.
• Swan's Braid & Other Tales of Terizan: In "The Lions of Al'Kalamir" any time either Swan, Essien or Jameel mention the late Prince Hasan they add "may he rot in the Netherhells".
• Tailchaser's Song:
  • Squirrels repeat words a lot. They are called "Rikchikchik" after all.
  • The creepy, hairless Toothguard cats slither in their speech, like snakes.
• Truth or Dare (2000): As a young child, Patrick would repeat the last few words someone said before replying to them. By the time he was thirteen, this had developed into a habit of humming before he talked. By middle age, he seems to have grown out of it.
• Wasp (1957): Sirians (an alien race) have a tendency to occasionally add "hi?" at the end of questions, especially when irritated or menacing.
• The Paul Jennings short story "Without a Shirt" concerns a kid who can't speak without ending his sentences with the titular phrase.

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