Rules for writers, Tenth edition - Diana Hacker, Nancy Sommers 2021
Do not rely heavily on clichés
Find the exact words
Clarity
The pioneer who first announced that he had “slept like a log” no doubt amused his companions with a fresh and unlikely comparison. Today, however, that comparison is a cliché, a saying that can no longer add emphasis or surprise.
To see just how predictable clichés are, put your hand over the right-hand column in the following list and then finish the phrases on the left.
busy as a |
bee, beaver |
cool as a |
cucumber |
dead as a |
doornail |
light as a |
feather |
avoid clichés like the |
plague |
The solution for clichés is simple: Delete them.
Sometimes you can write around a cliché by adding an element of surprise. For example, one student who had written that she had butterflies in her stomach revised her cliché like this:
If all of the action in my stomach is caused by butterflies, there must be a horde of them, with horseshoes on.
The image of butterflies wearing horseshoes is fresh and unlikely, not predictable like the original cliché.