Speech Verbs--What?!?

Since I mentioned verbs that could be used with direct speech in Monday's post, I thought it might be time to clarify this one.

A speech verb is a verb that can be used with direct speech. The best-known speech verb surely is "to say": "I can't do this," he said.

In writing, it is a common beginner's mistake to use each and every verb as a speech verb, regardless of whether or not it can be used that way. I see it regularly when I am reading texts from aspiring writers, and when I think back, I have to admit that I made the same mistake in my texts. It took some time and experience, and learning from other writers, until I noticed my mistakes and was able to avoid them.

People in those texts "sigh" something, "laugh" something or "sob" something. Honestly, have you ever tried to laugh the sentence "Oh, that was funny"? You can say it while laughing, but you certainly can't laugh it (and if you could, you would probably posess a very rare talent indeed and should be on TV with it...).

So, how can you find out whether or not a verb is a speech verb?

The safest bet is to get a good dictionary (probably a monolingual one) which indicates speech verbs. Mine, for example, lists [+ speech] if a verb can be used as speech verb.

If you don't have access to a dictionary which lists this, you can either try out whether or not you can actually ... something (insert the verb you want to use as speech verb), or you just stick with the ones you know for sure to be on the safe side.

Some of the most common speech verbs:

to say
to ask
to answer
to whisper
to shout

Do you have more questions on this topic? Go ahead and post them in the comments section!