Grammar Girl here. I'm Inyan Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to

the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. Today,

we'll talk about a quirky thing with the word said, who your kith are, and new scrabble

words you can start using immediately. A follower recently wrote, quote,

have you ever suddenly come across a certain usage and realized it really bothers you

and that you hate it? I just noticed one. It's the use of said as an adjective. As in,

I have a tree in my backyard. Said a tree is very tall. I think that what bothers me

is that it sounds like pseudo-legalese or cop talk, like what you might see in a police

report. Also, it's unnecessary. What other antecedent can I be referring to? Have you ever

addressed, said usage? unquote. Well, we addressed word a version when people have a visceral

reaction to the sound usage or even sight of a word in 2019. Word a version is different

from a pet peeve and that it can evoke an emotional or even physical reaction. Check out

Grammar Girl episode 733, why people hate the word moist for more on that. But in the

case of the followers question, there's more going on with the use of said as an adjective.

They're correct that this usage is found mostly in business and legal writing. In this

sense, it refers to something that was mentioned earlier. According to the site Grammarist,

quote, it's essentially a brief replacement of words like a forementioned and a foresaid

unquote. Well, it's usually a good idea to use simpler, shorter words. In this case,

it may sound awkward to some people like our follower. And in most cases, said could be

replaced with it, the this, these, or even removed with no effect on the meaning. Take

the example from the original question, I have a tree in my backyard. Said tree is very

tall. You could simply say, I have a tree in my backyard. It is very tall or just I have

...