On the Use of Cliches

This Gawker post on blog cliches hits very close to home. It's an "annotated list of words, phrases, and terms that have long overstayed their welcome in the media-blogosphere." I'd have to agree. I'm guilty of a few of these, too.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original blog entry at: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/01/on-the-use-of-cliches.html

90% of these seem to come straight from Jon Stewart/the Daily Show. Or maybe it’s the other way 'round.

I usually use those terms to mock others…

The key is to think outside the box.

One of my old managers used to say this to me. I told him to get a bigger box.

cliches rock! You’ve got to ask your self if you are thinking outsde the box on this, I mean are ya punk? I mean there are two kinds of people; those who can think out loud on this one, and those that can’t surf with the paradigm shift. Can you handle the truth? Cliches are da bomb girlfriend fa shizzle. I mean I am all over that like my other car is some mean overclocked tricked out core competencies. Can I get a whoop whoop? But if there’s one thing I gots ta say is that these bad boys are low hanging fruit.
You don’t want to jump the shark on this one. But, IMHO, if you can’t bring your self to drink the koo aid, It’s all good. To tell the truth, it is what it is. But if you run the numbers on this you’ll be in the home stretch before you start. Peace out.

Oh yeah, FIRST!

I am in ur [place], [verb]in ur [object].

Can I get a whoop whoop?

This one made me laugh. I need more writing with this phrase.

The one that patriotism = “whatever comes out of the mouth of politicians”, and also the one where you are un-patriotic if you side with the Constitution and not the “elected” officials are cliches I don’t much care for…

/[action] is a classic one

Also, my vote for most overused cliche phrase:

“At the end of the day, [conclusion]”

It’s so painful. And so horribly abused and overused in every form of media. It is possible to summarize something WITHOUT saying this. Just tell me your conclusion without the little unnecessary verbal flourish in front of it, OK?

Here’s a few I can’t stand

(*) Like I wrote before/the other day/last time, …
(trying to show how smart you were to write about something previously)

(*) signing off each post with a “Take Care” or “Till Next Time” :rolleyes:

There’s nothing I hate more than “Um, [condescension]?” Grr, it burns me up.

Could we kill off “second of all” while we’re at it? “First of all” has a long and respectable history, and then some wag came up with “second of all,” which was cute - maybe - the first time.

Jeff’s great blog clich is the bolding of one or two lines per post, which may or may not be the most important. :stuck_out_tongue:

Might update the condescension one to:
U[m|h], [condescension]?

~Sigh~ Everytime I read a post like this, a little part of me dies inside. Nevertheless, I need to throw a shout out to Jeff for bringing attention to this matter FWIW. Holla Holla!

I’m sure we can all agree that I never use cliches in my own writing. I keep it realz and write from the heart. But I digress…

Jeff, you are a madman.

Arrgh! Those are all my favorite cliches! Cliches don’t become cliches until people point out that they’re cliches! Why couldn’t you have just left well enough alone?

I guess I’ll just have to go back to my perennial fallback: long unbroken streams of incredibly foul profanity.

Always great to have the language police on the job! Thanks for manning the barricades, Jeff! Starting tomorrow, I’m sure everyone’s blogs will be much improved.

Also, my vote for most overused cliche phrase:
“At the end of the day, [conclusion]”

I blame Les Miserables.

These dont bother me as much as media cliches do. For example, the word “blogosphere”, to me, is an overused media pseudo catchphrase.