A New Day for Clichés

                         

the which, “A New Day,” is a cliché, itself. A cliché is an overused, been-there, done-that, same-old empty expression—even this sentence is filled with them—"been-there,” “done-that,” “same-old”—I could have added other clichés to my descriptors: “shopworn,” “dead metaphor,” “yawns.”  But why bother about them?  (Another cliché.)

            The word cliché is an onomatopoetic reference to the sound made by a stereotyping machine—a printing method that slides a bar back and forth over a paper laid on an inked plate.  Cliché, cliché, cliché. The word “stereotyping,” itself, is a metaphor taken from that process to refer to viewing those who are different from us as if they weren’t unique individuals—same thing, same thing, same thing.  It is a denial of the diversity and changeable nature of life. It inflates our egos at the expense of other human beings. Clichés are an invitation to stop asking questions.  Democracy, humanity, all scientific and creative activities are predicated on asking questions.  Without question, without questions civilization implodes.

            Cliché is defined as any word, phrase, idea, or habit that has lost meaning by careless overuse.  When Shakespeare first coined such phrases as wild goose chase, green-eyed monster,

seen better days, forever and a day, fair play, lie low, and good riddance—they were original and meaningful to his contemporaries.  But most of us in our twenty-first century urban lives never see a goose, even as a Thanksgiving meal, let alone know what a wild goose looks like or what it would mean to chase one.  And how many times have you wished someone to sleep tight?  That expression refers to a time when mattresses were laid atop a series of ropes that were tightened by wooden turners each night.  With our sleep number and digitally managed mattresses, sleep tight no longer makes contemporary sense.

            In stoking stereotypes, prejudices; in shutting down creative and critical thinking; clichés give us a—here comes another cliché—false sense of security—a feeling of certainty, tradition—a common language.  But clichés—like all racial, gender, national, and sexuality stereotyping—are dangerous.  Just because something is familiar and pervasive, doesn’t mean that it means anything, or anything significant.  Consider a slogan created in the 2016 United States presidential election: “Make America Great Again.”  Since it’s been coined (that’s a dead metaphor, too, “coined”—most of our current currency is either paper or digital), this slogan has been slung about to create battle lines between political parties, national regions, and diverse populations within them.  I

            But Make America Great Again, in its divisiveness, is misleading and dangerous.  First, the phrase assumes a particular definition of “great,” a very vague and overinflated (another dead word referring to balloons and tires) term.  Next, it assumes that America has been in—whatever sense you’d like to project—great!  It also assumes that if America was great that somehow it stopped being great.  All of these assumptions are just code for bashing the previous administration and inviting everyone to give into their stereotyping prejudices.

            Clichés provoke school shootings, terrorist attacks, hate crimes, and divert our attention from real issues—such as global warming. So, this business of becoming aware of clichés is not only important, but (another cliché coming) life-and-death crucial.

            I know the temptation, all too well. In my early drafts of my textbook, The Flexible Writer, I incorporated clichés.  Thankfully, my publisher sent out preliminary chapters to professors nationwide, as prospective customers.  I was mortified when they pointed out how many clichés I had used.  I realized that using them was a reflection of my insecurity about writing the book, my need to cozy up to readers, a way to say I’m one of you. Naturally, that was a victim pose, not worthy of someone who was on a mission to help others write authentic, original work.

            So, too, especially as a student writer, you might find yourself using clichés, for a variety of reasons:

(1)   You don’t realize you are

(2)   You’re padding your paper to reach a page quota

(3)   You’re insecure about your writing

(4)   You don’t have the energy to think

(5)   You are hypnotized by clichés

Languages are repositories of history.  As Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, “to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.”  It’s nearly impossible to write a phrase without invoking some metaphor that someone created afresh eons ago, but that is dead now.  Think of them as being on a continuum—from Almost New to Boring. 

Rule #1 for a writer, especially a student writer, is Don’t Be Boring. Consider clichés in writing to be bookmarks, placeholders, blank spaces (for a cliché is a blank when it comes to thinking) to be revisited—deleted, rethought, revised and re-envisioned. 

Here are some clichés I harvested from a recent set of student papers.  My yuckiest is in today’s society. The word society can apply to as little as keeping society with oneself, to the multi-billion inhabitants of earth.  It can apply to a group of skinheads as well as a gathering of Quakers.  The word is impossibly broad and uninformative.  My second bleh cliché is in fact. The word fact derives from the Latin facio, which means ‘to make.’ One person’s fact is another person’s question. We make them up until the next more compelling point of view emerges. To modify a claim by appending as a matter of fact shuts down thought and invites all the other dangers of clichés.

 Then there are beck and call, has feelings for, putting women down, what stood out to me, has to do with, at first glance, ranting and raving, keeps a close eye on, something to be said for, in a flash of an eye…

Consider clichés to be signals and opportunities to wake up to language. Become a cliché hunter, especially in your own writing.  Consider the expressions in the art at the top of this post.  Go to the internet, type in clichés, and be amazed. Listen to yourself and others. Name that cliché and then ask questions. 

            Name and avoid clichés. Strive for original, thoughtful, vivid language. To do so is a political and moral act of respect—for oneself and for others.  It is a route to authenticity and civility.  Becauseicanteach.blogspot.com is devoted to identifying clichés in education, specifically, and in language, in general.  Are you, as it were, in?

Looking forward to your observations on and examples of clichés.

Works Cited

Cover Art: https://literaryterms.net/cliche/

Shakespeare clichés: http://mentalfloss.com/article/60264/21-phrases-you-use-without-realizing-youre-quoting-shakespeare