WRITING LESSON: CLICHÉS

Clichés offer prefabricated phrasing that may be used without effort on your part. They are thus used at the expense of both individuality and precision, since you can't say just what you mean in the mechanical response of a cliché. George Orwell's advice is overstated for effect, but it's still good to bear it in mind: "Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print." If you're depending on a stock phrase, you're letting someone else do half your thinking for you.

A comprehensive catalogue of clichés is beyond me, but here's a list of the more egregious ones that get under my skin:

absolutely;
any way, shape, or form;
at the end of the day;
the blame game;
feel (for think, believe, etc.);
hot-button issue;
massive or massively;
playing the race card;
sending a message;
99% for anything just shy of complete; 110% effort.

They're not clever, they're not funny, they're not memorable, they're not convincing. They're prefab strips of language, hastily tacked together, and they do you no good.

If you must resort to clichés, though, be especially careful not to muddle them. Remember, for example, that the more widely accepted phrase is "I couldn't care less," not could: the idea is that "It would be impossible to care about this subject any less than I already do." And a U.S. Senator, trying to reassure his constituents that the budget talks were going well in spite of the apparent chaos, told reporters, "It's always darkest before the storm," rather than "before the dawn" — he thereby unintentionally suggested that things are going to get worse, not better. Pay attention to every word.

Don't, by the way, confuse these mangled clichés with mixed metaphors — though a mixed metaphor might result from a botched cliché, they're not the same thing.

Neither should you confuse clichés in general with idioms, the natural way to say something. The desire to avoid clichés shouldn't make your language oddball. Learning to tell the difference between the two is an important skill, and one you can develop only over time.