Most Annoying Saying

[CrypticWeirwood]

A minor thing that always makes me smile: "steep stone steps".

I mean, I like the alliteration, but isn't there any normal stair in all the Seven Kingdoms??

Well, no one would remark on normal steps, now would they? ;-}

Here are all the steep steps:

• Game: Outside, Tyrion swallowed a lungful of the cold morning air and began his laborious descent of the steep stone steps that corkscrewed around the exterior of the library tower.
  
• Game: Alyn and Porther climbed the steep iron steps to help him back down.
  
• Game: With one arm around each man’s shoulders, Ned managed to descend the steep tower steps and hobble across the bailey.
  
• Clash: The fool turned his patched and piebald head to watch Pylos climb the steep iron steps to the rookery.
  
• Clash: The steep stone steps had Sam puffing like a blacksmith’s bellows by the time they reached the surface.
  
• Storm: He remembered a cold morning when he’d climbed down the steep exterior steps from Winterfell’s library to find Prince Joffrey jesting with the Hound about killing wolves.
  
• Storm: He left the armory by the back, descending a steep flight of stone steps to the wormways, the tunnels that linked the castle’s keeps and towers below the earth.
  
• Feast: A pale shaft of light illuminated the steep stone steps that led up to the surface, so he knew that day had come up top.
  
• Feast: Though his grandsons were great strapping men, they struggled with his weight on the steep stone steps.
  
• Feast: She crept down the steep steps to the covered dock, the mists swirling round her feet.
  
• Feast: Steep stone steps crept up the mountainside past the waycastles Stone and Snow, but they came to an end at Sky.
  
• Feast: From the Crescent Chamber they climbed a steep flight of marble steps that bypassed both undercrofts and dungeons and passed beneath three murder holes, which the Lords Declarant pretended not to notice.
  
• Feast: The headsman rose and followed, his cracked leather boots scraping against the steep stone steps as they went down the stair.
  
• Dance: For half a heartbeat it eluded him, and that frightened him so badly that he tripped on the steep dungeon steps and tore his breeches open on the stone, drawing blood.
  
• Dance: She is young, Tyrion had to remind himself, as Penny scrambled from the galley and up the steep wooden steps as fast as her short legs would allow.
  
• Dance: On the day she had woken blind, the waif took her by the hand and led her through the vaults and tunnels of the rock on which the House of Black and White was built, up the steep stone steps into the temple proper.
  
• Dance: Ser Barristan was still wrestling with that suspicion when he heard the sound of heavy boots ascending the steep stone steps at the back of the hall.
  
• Dance: Until the day their lord father’s heart had burst in his chest as he was ascending a steep flight of steps to her bed, that is.
  

Aren’t those delightful? Truly through, I find many other of the formulaic repetitions far more annoying.

[The Smiling Eye]

When Daenerys says something that contains the word dragon.

Yeah this.

[CrypticWeirwood]

"For the nonce"

I don't hate it but in Britain "nonce" means paedophile so that cracks me up.

The phrase “for the nonce” isn’t all too common in the books, comparatively speaking, and as it’s a stock phrase I use myself, doesn’t bother me a bit. Here are all its occurrences:

• Game: “Well enough, for the nonce.
  
• Storm: “King Balon’s longships are occupied for the nonce,” Lord Tywin said politely, “as are we.
  
• Storm: “For the nonce, until we can hold a choosing,” said Maester Aemon.
  
• Storm: “I’m done with dancing for the nonce.”
  
• Storm: The kettle had not moved from where he’d left it, so it seemed as though they were safe enough for the nonce.
  
• Feast: For the nonce, all she could do was tell the merchants to pay the Braavosi usurers their due.
  
• Feast: “I dare more than you dream... but leave that for the nonce.
  
• Feast: “Alas, I have been dismissed from the council, although for the nonce they allow me to continue my work with the eunuch’s whisperers.
  
• Dance: “Only for the nonce.
  
• Dance: Those gates looked so close … and if the talk in the slave pens could be believed, Meereen remained a free city for the nonce.
  
• Dance: He would need to burn them eventually, no doubt, but for the nonce they were bound with iron chains inside their cells.
  
• Dance: “Prisoners, for the nonce.”
  

"Musts needs" pisses me off a bit.

It’s actually “must needs”, and there are indeed a lot of those. That’s a more typical UK usage, perhaps, but I always reckoned t the inverted version “needs must” to be more common. However, Martin only uses the former, never the latter.

This is one of those deliberate archaicisms that Martin uses increasingly much over the course of the five published books. This is really irrritating because it makes the various books not read the same. It is also annoying because it eventually becomes nothing but a hackneyed phrase after you’ve been bludgeoned by it long enough and hard enough. There are others that are even worse, though, which I may write about anon.

Here are the figures for “must needs” over the five books:

• Game: 5
  
• Clash: 3
  
• Storm: 8
  
• Feast: 12
  
• Dance: 22
  

See what I mean? It just gets worse and worse. Wait till you see the others in this vein.

[Natalie_S]

Whenever Daenerys says "..... is MINE!!!" she sounds like those pigeons from Finding Nemo....MINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINE

LOL!

"If I look back, I'm lost"

The bit about the queen of rabbits with floppy ears

"I AM DAENERYS STORMBORN OF HOUSE TARGARYEN OF OLD VALYRIAN BLOOD MOTHER OF DRAGONS AND BLAH BLAH BLAH"

So, yeah, pretty much whatever Daenerys says. :P

[CrypticWeirwood]

"You know nothing"

Yup, zillions of these in Storm, that’s for sure.

• Game: “My nine-year-old daughter is being armed from my own forge, and I know nothing of it.
  
• Game: I know nothing of any murders.”
  
• Clash: Ten years a wolf, and you land here and think to prince about the islands, but you know nothing and no one.
  
• Clash: Osmynd, my father, Uncle Brynden, old Maester Kym, they always seemed to know everything, but now there is only me, and it seems I know nothing, not even my duty.
  
• Clash: “I know nothing of any-” “You know nothing,” she agreed, sweeping from the cell.
  
• Clash: “I know nothing of hunting.”
  
• Storm: “Jon Snow, you know nothing.
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Storm: They’ve never seen a battle, they’ve never seen a man die, they know nothing.
  
• Storm: You know nothing, Jon Snow, but I can show you.
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Storm: You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
  
• Storm: You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Storm: You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Storm: You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Storm: You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Storm: You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow!” she shouted at him, and flung the bloody blade at his feet.
  
• Storm: We know nothing of this man “We know that he is a great fighter.”
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered, her skin dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled thick and red.
  
• Storm: “He knows nothing.
  
• Storm: I cannot read, I cannot write, the lords despise me, I know nothing of ruling, how can I be the King’s Hand?
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she sighed, dying.
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” Ygritte would have said.
  
• Storm: Shae knows nothing that can hurt me.
  
• Storm: “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” Ygritte would have told him.
  
• Storm: Jon pushed his hair back out of his eyes and said, “I may know nothing, but I know that.
  
• Dance: You know nothing, Jon Snow, Ygritte used to say, but he had learned.
  
• Dance: “Then you know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered.
  
• Dance: You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Dance: You know nothing.”
  
• Dance: She knows nothing of our prince.
  
• Dance: You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Dance: I know nothing, Ygritte, he thought, and perhaps I never will.
  
• Dance: You know nothing, Jon Snow, Ygritte might say, but Jon spoke with the giant whenever he could, through Leathers or one of the free folk they had brought back from the grove, and was learning much and more about his people and their history.
  
• Dance: You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Dance: You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Dance: You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  
• Dance: You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
  
• Dance: “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she’d told him a hundred times.
  
• Dance: “You know nothing.
  
• Dance: They know nothing, Ygritte.
  
• Dance: You know nothing, Jon Snow.
  

Remember that one of those is Melisandre’s.

"I'm just a young/inexperienced etc. little girl"

Oh yes, that one becomes truly annoying.

• Storm: “I am only a young girl and do not understand the ways of war, yet these odds seem poor to me.”
  
• Storm: “It is true that I am only a young girl, and do not know the ways of war.
  
• Storm: “To be sure, I am only a young girl and know little of war.
  
• Dance: “I am only a young girl and know little of the ways of war,” she told Lord Ghael, “but we have heard that Astapor is starving.
  
• Dance: I am only a young girl and know little of such matters, but I dwelt with Xaro Xhoan Daxos long enough to learn that much.
  
• Dance: Even a young girl who knew nothing of the ways of war knew that.
  
• Dance: “At Volantis, you will have fresh tidings of Daenerys, we must hope,” he said, as he sucked one from its shell. “Dragons and young girls are both capricious, and it may be that you will need to adjust your plans.
  
• Dance: Lots o’ young girls taking up the trade, the way girls always do when it’s all they got to sell.
  
• Dance: “I am only a young girl and know little of such things, but older, wiser men tell me that to hold Meereen I must control its hinterlands, all the land west of Lhazar as far south as the Yunkish hills.”
  
• Dance: “I may be a young girl, but I am not so foolish as to wed a man who finds a fruit platter more enticing than my breast.
  
• Dance: “Young girls should be an ornament to the eye, not an ache in the ear.”
  
• Dance: “Oftimes I have heard you say that you are only a young girl.
  
• Dance: “Though young girls have been known to be fickle.
  
• Dance: “I may be a young girl innocent of war, but I am not a lamb to walk bleating into the harpy’s den.
  
• Dance: She was a young girl, and alone, and young girls can change their minds.
  
• Dance: “I am only a young girl, and young girls must have their gifts,” she said lightly.
  
• Dance: “I am only a young girl and know little of such things, but it seems to me that we want them to be treacherous.
  
• Dance: Short and stocky, plain-faced, he seemed a decent lad, sober, sensible, dutiful … but not the sort to make a young girl’s heart beat faster.
  
• Dance: And Daenerys Targaryen, whatever else she might be, was still a young girl, as she herself would claim when it pleased her to play the innocent.
  
• Dance: Mud would nourish you, where fire would only consume you, but fools and children and young girls would choose fire every time.
  
• Dance: A young girl she might be, but Daenerys Targaryen was the only thing that held them all together.
  
• Dance: I am only a young girl.”
  

"Nuncle"

That one didn’t show up at all until Feast, where it appeared a whopping 37 times. It further appeared 7 more times in Dance.

"Nipples on a breastplate"

That one there aren’t so many of, surprisingly enough.

• Clash: Dolorous Edd opined that glass knives were about as useful as nipples on a knight’s breastplate, but Jon was not so certain.
  
• Feast: The man is as useless as nipples on a breastplate.
  
• Feast: A shield on his right arm would prove about as useful as nipples on his breastplate.
  
• Dance: He’s going to be as useful as nipples on a breastplate.
  
• Dance: These Kingsguard knights are as useless as nipples on a breastplate.”
  
• Dance: The nipples on his muscled breastplate had a pair of iron rings through them.
  

[SerMixalot]

I know it was never said in the book but "I will take what is mine with fire and blood!"

ummm missy moo you are there asking the spicer for many many ships. He politely said no. What the F with the threats.

F u and the horse you rode in on.

[Sword of the Morning Wood]

• Storm: “I’m done with dancing for the nonce.”
  

...said the choir boy to the priest.

[VersusAllOdds]

Anything Tyrion or Dany say in the Dance.

[Onion Smuggler]

Anything Tyrion or Dany say in the Dance.

Dany yes, but Tyrion?

Nipples on a breast plate is the most annoying saying ever.

[Dread Pirate Euron]

The endless variations of loosening bowels

[The GreatRon]

Selyse Florent

[IceGal]

Winter is coming

The night is dark blah blah

I am blood of the dragon

And it's not a saying, but I cringe everytime I hear "nuncle".

[Greywolf2375]

"It's an adaption!"

sorry to cross over the tv forum to here, but couldn't resist.

[Snow's Spearwife]

Reznak mo Reznak.

It's not a saying, but it might as well be.

[CrypticWeirwood]

Selyse Florent

Slease Floor-It

[dollybird]

It is known.......

You know nothing Jon Snow......

You wore the back off those ones Grrm!!!!

[dollybird]

• Game: Outside, Tyrion swallowed a lungful of the cold morning air and began his laborious descent of the steep stone steps that corkscrewed around the exterior of the library tower.
  
• Game: Alyn and Porther climbed the steep iron steps to help him back down.
  
• Game: With one arm around each man’s shoulders, Ned managed to descend the steep tower steps and hobble across the bailey.
  
• Clash: The fool turned his patched and piebald head to watch Pylos climb the steep iron steps to the rookery.
  
• Clash: The steep stone steps had Sam puffing like a blacksmith’s bellows by the time they reached the surface.
  
• Storm: He remembered a cold morning when he’d climbed down the steep exterior steps from Winterfell’s library to find Prince Joffrey jesting with the Hound about killing wolves.
  
• Storm: He left the armory by the back, descending a steep flight of stone steps to the wormways, the tunnels that linked the castle’s keeps and towers below the earth.
  
• Feast: A pale shaft of light illuminated the steep stone steps that led up to the surface, so he knew that day had come up top.
  
• Feast: Though his grandsons were great strapping men, they struggled with his weight on the steep stone steps.
  
• Feast: She crept down the steep steps to the covered dock, the mists swirling round her feet.
  
• Feast: Steep stone steps crept up the mountainside past the waycastles Stone and Snow, but they came to an end at Sky.
  
• Feast: From the Crescent Chamber they climbed a steep flight of marble steps that bypassed both undercrofts and dungeons and passed beneath three murder holes, which the Lords Declarant pretended not to notice.
  
• Feast: The headsman rose and followed, his cracked leather boots scraping against the steep stone steps as they went down the stair.
  
• Dance: For half a heartbeat it eluded him, and that frightened him so badly that he tripped on the steep dungeon steps and tore his breeches open on the stone, drawing blood.
  
• Dance: She is young, Tyrion had to remind himself, as Penny scrambled from the galley and up the steep wooden steps as fast as her short legs would allow.
  
• Dance: On the day she had woken blind, the waif took her by the hand and led her through the vaults and tunnels of the rock on which the House of Black and White was built, up the steep stone steps into the temple proper.
  
• Dance: Ser Barristan was still wrestling with that suspicion when he heard the sound of heavy boots ascending the steep stone steps at the back of the hall.
  
• Dance: Until the day their lord father’s heart had burst in his chest as he was ascending a steep flight of steps to her bed, that is.
  

I really have to say that I admire the attention that it requires to notice this in the first place and the effort it takes to find and produce all of those quotes. Well done and just because you went to such effort to point it out, I agree!! They must have arses like body builders from climbing all those "steep steps"!

The same with the quotes from the 2nd post above ( too long to copy to my post) thats dedication!!

[JDNight]

"Wherever whores go" and "Lancel and Kettleblack and Moonboy for all I know"

These are my favorite quotes. Jamie had it coming!

"The night is dark and-" SHUT UP!!! :angry:

:P :P :P

Most annoying quote ever. So what if the night is...

"You know nothing, Jon Snow."

Annoying, and untrue.

[waaimasjien]

the effort it takes to find and produce all of those quotes.

You know about ebooks and search functions right? At least I hope CrypticWeirwood does ;) .

I have no problem with any phrases or wordings from the first three books. 'You know nothing' was a bit overused, but it never annoyed me.

Words start to get annoying when out of nowhere, everyone starts using them when they weren't used at all or rarely in the first three books. It's obvious they were thought up later, which makes them feel like glaring continuity fuckups.

Groats, pennies, nuncles, words that are wind and nipples on breastplates aren't annoying because one certain character is overusing them, it's because it's obvious the one who is overusing them is the writer. GRRM's editor must have felt that waiting five years for a book was long enough, so why make readers wait longer by taking the time to edit the text? ('Oh, Dance has to be shortened? Let's just lop off the last 200 pages containing the climax!')

[CrypticWeirwood]

"Wherever whores go"

There’s exactly one of those in Storm: the one from Tywin.

There are... rather more in Dance.

• Storm: “Wherever whores go.”
  
• Dance: “Might that be where whores go?”
  
• Dance: But he did not know where whores go.
  
• Dance: “Wherever whores go,” his father had said.
  
• Dance: “Wherever whores go.”
  
• Dance: “Where do whores go?” he heard himself ask.
  
• Dance: “Wherever whores go,” he heard Lord Tywin say once more, and once more the bowstring thrummed.
  
• Dance: “Do you know where whores go?”
  
• Dance: “Where do whores go?” he asked the wash flapping on the line.
  
• Dance: “Wherever whores go,” Lord Tywin said.
  
• Dance: Do you know where whores go?”
  
• Dance: “Only if he knows where whores go.”
  
• Dance: “Wherever whores go,” Lord Tywin said, and the crossbow thrummed.
  
• Dance: Tell me, where do whores go?”
  
• Dance: He thought of Tysha and wondered where whores go.
  
• Dance: “Wherever whores go,” he said.
  
• Dance: Is that where whores go, to the sea?
  
• Dance: Selhorys may be where whores go.
  
• Dance: “Do you know where whores go?”
  
• Dance: Could Slaver’s Bay be where whores went?
  
• Dance: Or chasing across half the world, hoping to find wherever whores go.
  
• Dance: Where do whores go?
  
• Dance: “Wherever whores go,” Lord Tywin said, but when Tyrion’s finger clenched and the bowstring thrummed, it was Penny with the quarrel buried in her belly.