He said, she said, they said ...

 I recently edited a translation of a Chinese short story, which needed some polishing up although it was fairly well written – or translated.

The most significant improvement I could make – apart from ensuring that all dialogue was duly given its own line – was to find lots of appropriate synonyms for the verb "to say". English, with its rich lexicon of synonyms from Anglo Saxon and Latin, has plenty to offer to replace “say” and “said”.

Intrigued, I decided to find a list on www.thesaurus.com .  Replacements for “say”, according to the context, could include: “add”, “declare”, “suggest”, “imply”, “relate”, “remark”, “opine” or “rap”.

So there you are, budding English writers – vary your vocabulary and use your thesaurus well. But with such a huge list to take your pick from, it might be difficult to find the appropriate words for what you want to say – or shall we say “express”?

That is precisely what we love to do at www.writeitclearly.com − find the right words for the right context and use them wisely!