A rant about clichés

A cliché is a “trite or overused expression or idea.” It is a phrase that, when someone first uttered or wrote it, was a fresh, humorous, and lively way of expressing an idea. It was so good that people who heard it or read it said “I like that! I’m going to use that!” And they do, again and again.

And so it spreads like sniffles in a preschool, eventually losing whatever freshness, humor, and life it once had. (I was just about to write “it spreads like wildfire,” but that would have been, well, a cliché.)

Someone just emailed me a marketing brochure that included the phrase “a 24/7, one-stop shop.” Blork! Those two worn-out business clichés slid from my monitor onto my keyboard and sagged there, blinking mournfully, as if to say “Look at us. Once we were young and energetic. Now we can’t even keep ourselves from sliding off the screen. Pathetic, isn’t it? We’d kill ourselves, but we don’t have the will.”

Clichés are the parasites of language. They embed themselves in your writing and speaking, unnoticed, but slowly sucking the blood, the energy, the essence out of your words. They can be hard to purge, because they often become impacted in the culture at large. You hear them from the radio, in conversations, in movies. You read them in newspapers, books, and on the web.

As I’ve said before, the best defense against clichés is to ask yourself, “Are those my words, my thoughts? Or am I just parroting a cool phrase I picked up somewhere?”

Comments

[Tish]

"Sniffles in a preschool," I like it! (Not the actual sniffles, but the metaphor.)

I read a great one today in "Casino Royale" by Ian Fleming:

"The two cards slithered towards him across the green sea. Like an octopus under a rock, Le Chiffre watched him from the other side of the table."

That's why he's a great author.