The word snoop - Ursula Dubosarsky 2009

Clichés
Hmm i wonder what you’re really saying

I was scared to death. I knew my turn was coming. I sat pretending to be cool as a cucumber while I waited for the bell to ring. It seemed to take forever and I lost track of time. Then the next thing I knew it was lunchtime. Saved by the bell! I ran outside, free as a bird, without a care in the world . . .

Can you guess why the Word Snoop has put some of the words in the little story above in bold? Well, it’s because each of those expressions is something called a cliché (pronounced cleeshay ). Clichés are phrases that you have heard and read so many times, they don’t really carry much meaning or excitement anymore.

The word clichégoes back to France in the eighteenth century, when printing was done by making metal plates with the letters placed on them. A particular kind of fixed metal plate, called a stereotype, was invented as a quick, cheap way to print something over and over again, instead of making up a new plate each time. Cliché (meaning “clicked”) was a word for the sound the plate made in the press, and was often used for the name of the plate itself.

But although it was a cheaper and quicker method of printing, the print quality of these clichés and stereotypes was not as good as setting up new printing blocks each time. So the words came to be used for characters or expressions in writing that are weak copies, rather than being fresh and original.

Clichés are everywhere—in newspapers, books, television, radio, and songs. Why do we use so many? Well, I suppose the whole reason a cliché comes about is because the first time the expression is used, it seems to describe something really well—that’s why it gets repeated so often and becomes a cliché. When people are in the grip of their deepest emotions, they often use clichés to sum up how they’re feeling: “I’m totally shattered” or “This is too good to be true.”

If you look at the Bible or plays by William Shakespeare, they seem to be full of clichés, with phrases like “by the skin of your teeth” or “there’s method in his madness.” But these weren’t clichés to begin with. They were expressions that people liked, and so kept on saying. The problem is, once you say something too many times, it can lose the meaning it had in the first place.

There are writers, though, who use clichés on purpose. The nineteenth-century French novelist Gustave Flaubert made characters think or speak in clichés because he wanted to show the reader that’s how some people actually think and speak. Other writers play around with clichés and create something called an anti-cliché. The Big Bad Wolf is a bit of a cliché—okay, so why not write a story about the Big Good Wolf? That’s an anti-cliché. But then if everyone does it, the Big Good Wolf becomes a cliché too. Then what do you do? (An anti-anti-cliché?)

It’s very difficult to avoid clichés completely. The problem with clichés is that they’re so familiar that you don’t even notice you’re using them. You can get computer programs now that will look for clichés in your writing and highlight them. What you see might shock you to the bone!Oops . . . um . . . I mean, shock your socks off . . . I mean, shock you out of your mind.Oh dear. How about may cause disturbance to some viewers . . . ? Gee, this is harder than it looks!

Take a look at the little story on page 180 and see if you can rewrite it without the clichés. Which version is more enjoyable to read? And to write?