Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40567
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40567
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You're being overly sensitive. Any combination of two words, no matter how original, could be already used elsewhere. That's not plagiarism, that's statistics.

The only slightly worrying case is your exhibit A, since it's the most unusual sentence of the ones you cited. But then again, I wouldn't fret about it. They are just three words in a line, even if they are somewhat peculiar, they are three.

Exhibit B is not even an exhibit: you just used a rhetorical device of repetition over the word "synonym". It's not plagiarism, its just chance.

Consider the famous Macbeth verse:

> Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,  
> Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,  
> To the last syllable of recorded time;  
> And all our yesterdays have lighted fools  
> The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

By your standards, you wouldn't be able to use combinations as:

- Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow (again, a repetition)
- petty pace
- recorded time
- lighted fools
- dusty deaths
- brief candle

If this seems unreasonable to you, it's because it is. Plagiarism is, most of the time, a deliberate decision; being inspired by others is another thing entirely, and using expressions already used elsewhere is almost unavoidable.

I won't open here the whole debate of originality vs imitation, but that's another thing to consider, and very relevant to the creative process. **To wrap it up,** while we may follow the idea of being "original" and do things nobody has done before, as humans a lot of our mindframe (and artistic sense) comes from consuming and imitating the works of others. And that, if you want my two cents on the matter, is perfectly fine.

**Going back to your question:** rein in your inner editor, because it's rampaging and censoring your own work.

Original score: 15