Ten Words You May Want To Strike From Your Manuscript if You Are Reading to Middle-Schoolers*

Amy Minton & Bryan Furuness

1. Streptococcus

2. Fiduciary

3. Ho-hum

4. Pupa

5. Ball-peen

6. Uvula

7. Petite (say it slowly)

8. Succulent

9. Testy

10. Douchenozzle

*Nothing here can help you if your book is a young-adult biography of Dick Butkus

Amy Minton & Bryan Furuness are robot lions who come together to form a list-writing Voltron. They met at the Warren Wilson Program for Writers, where they distracted each other from missing their children (which they did not make together) by making each other laugh with words that sound dirty.

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