I’m currently reading Devils Gun by Cat Rambo, and while the third-person omniscient POV takes a little getting used to, it’s generally a pretty enjoyable book. But as I was reading last night, I was reminded of yet another phrase that has started to drive me crazy: “pop it in your mouth”. Or, if you prefer, “he popped the [thing] in his mouth.”

Look, I get it. It’s evocative. I can’t imagine a person on the planet who hasn’t popped something in their mouth from time to time. For Americans, it’s usually grapes appearing in one’s mental image, although it could certainly be other things like shrimp or chewing gum. But there’s just something about that phrase that’s become so overused. I see it whenever a character is attempting to be cavalier about something. In Devil’s Gun, it’s used to indicate a certain level of disdain from a minor antagonistic character; in other books, it indicates carelessness — not that someone is careless, per se, but that they don’t have any cares about something. (There is a difference, at least in my mind.)

There’s just something about the phrase “pop it in your mouth” that doesn’t usually fit with the tone of the scene (or the book), no matter what the tone is. Humorous, serious, whatever; it just doesn’t work for me. So, while it does evoke a certain image and feeling, from a purely literary perspective it’s not only overused but it’s also useless because it takes me out of the scene and makes me concentrate on the wording itself. You never want to do that when you’re writing.

So let’s all make a vow not to pop things in our mouths, at least when we’re writing, okay? It would make me very happy.