If you want to produce some great mind-numbing work, clichés are the way to go;
“Well, here comes twiddle Dee and twiddle Dum, their about as useless as a screen door on a submarine” Jane Doe said in the nick of time for the by-passers to hear her. She looked up at John but his eyes were glued to the road. “Well that’s like the pot calling the kettle black, you don’t even know up from down!” he yammered back. “Well, it was your half-baked idea to get married; you don’t want me then tell me! You a man or a mouse John!?” screamed Jane through her ruby-red lips. “All I’m saying is distance makes the heart grow fonder, why don’t you catch the next train outa town Jane?” Her eyes pleaded with him to not dash her hopes. “Fine” she said through a river a tears “I don’t look good in white anyway”. “WAIT!” screamed John, but she already hit the ground running.
This is an example of what Clichés can do to your writing; we’ve heard these phrases so many times over and over it’s as if it went through one ear and out the other! Clichés are phrases, expressions, or ideas that have been used over and over again. So much that it gets to a point where all the novelty wears of and soon they just become crutches for creativity. Phrases or ideas that have been used to much that people don’t even think when they hear them. Most of the time the original meaning of theses clichés are forgotten, but the words stick around, like a snake does with its skin, it’s time to shed clichés!
Can you finish every one of the clichés without even thinking?
a.)Smart as a _ _ _ _.
b.)Day in, Day _ _ _.
c.)Time is _ _ _ _ _.
d.)Eager _ _ _ _ _ _.
e.)Quicker than a New York _ _ _ _ _ _.
f.)Skeletons in the _ _ _ _ _.
Now, let’s brake down these clichés by looking at their warrants.
a.) I didn’t know whips had intelligence
b.) So, are we able to walk into a day, and then walk out of it? Like a door to a house?
c.) A non-material thing is a material thing… contradiction?
d.) Talking about building a damn?
e.) I didn’t know that minutes went faster in other parts of the world! Wow!
f.) What!? Who the hell did she kill!?
How to rid yourselves of Clichés.... If you think about it, all languages are just a series of clichés; words, phrases, and ideas used over and over to describe something. So it might be harder than you think to weed out clichés. But we don’t have to be so domineering as to banish the cliché completely; after all, clichés are often used because they describe things so well and can be easily understood among large groups of people. One great way of getting around this problem is to re-write clichés.
Example: Come up with some ways to rewrite, “off the deep end”.
Thesaurus: Vanished from the subterranean conclusion. Ha Ha make any sense?
Now, you don’t have to write a flawless draft without Clichés, I understand how hard it is! Plus, no one wants to stop and re-write clichés while ideas are just bouncing out of you. It’s easier to just keep going, let your ideas present themselves on paper, then, re-read and revise the clichés that you have found just as we did with the example above.
Arthur Plotnik comes up with a great way to revise clichés;
"Web searches reveal used variations of almost every cliché. In your search box, just enter chunks of the cliché (each chunk in quotes), followed by a space, a minus sign and (no space) a key word in the original cliché.
For example, enter: "Looking for" "in all the wrong places" -love and up come dozens of twists on the "looking for love" version, with tweakers looking for everything from "links" and "losers" to "oil" and "God"--but nothing as good as the winners you can find in all the right places of that creative mind."
One thing that helps me is to have a thesaurus at hand and look up the synonyms to words in the cliché, don’t be afraid to be a little eccentric, it’s okay to make people think! If you do this, you will be working your creative brain muscles and pretty soon you might be making up your own language!
Attached to the Cliché? So, you’re having a hard time letting these clichés go huh? Well here is an Idea for those of you who love writing with clichés and can’t seem to let them go; don’t use predictable clichés, use ones that are unexpected, ones that are not really related, ones that will make people think just as much as it would if it was original!
For example; instead of saying clichés like “Win some lose some.” Or “losers find ways to lose” in response to something being lost. How about, “Wow, it seems like your life is falling apart like a cornbread turd!” or “if wishes were horses and dreams could ride you’d find what you’re looking for” Most likely your reader will have to stop and think about what the cliché is and how it relates to what was just said!
Related Topics
Warrants: www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~digger/305/criteria.htm
Falacias: http://seedwiki.com/wiki/fallacies/fallacies?wikiPageId=1239109
Slogans: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slogan
Can’t think of any Clichés? Wanta try unpacking more? Try these web-sites out;
www.westegg.com/cliche/ : On this site you can use a search word to find clichés pertaining to a certain subject, or you can choose the "ten random clichés" button, it has over 2,000 clichés to ponder!
utopia.knoware.nl/users/sybev/cliche/ : Site called "The Book of Clichés", it has different topic listed for any situation then a list of clichés that are handy to know pertaining to the linked topic.
www.clichesite.com/ : Another site where there is a search box. Really easy to navigate through and actually has pictures! I like this site because it gives explanations for each cliché given.
Work Cited / Annotated Bibliography
Pence, Gregory. “Let's Think Outside the Box of Bad Clichés” 12 August 2007: Newsweek; Vol. 150 Issue 6. 16 April 2008
Gregory Pence has taught philosophy at the University of Alabama since 1977. IN 1994 he won one of UAB’s highest rewards for teaching, the Ingalls reward. He has also written several books. I found it interesting that a bioethics teacher would be as interested in clichés as to write an article about them. However, clichés affect everyone’s life. Since he grades papers, he runs into clichés. This article really helped me understand how much we use clichés as a crutch to help ourselves think, even when the cliché doesn’t apply to the situation, it’s just so well known that we think it applies. Throughout the article he takes clichés and dissects them by breaking them down and really making the reader see the true meaning of the cliché. This is all a process for readers to understand what some clichés really mean, and where it is appropriate to use clichés.
Plotnik, Arthur “Twist worn expressions into winners” Writer; Aug2006, Vol. 119 Issue 8. 16 April, 2008
Arthur Plotnik has an extensive history with editing and publishing and has written several books about editing and expression through writing. He is often praised for his unique sense of style and wit. For someone like this I can understand why he would be writing about clichés! Plotnik argues that too many writers “cross the street” when they see clichés and that it would be better all together if we learned how to re-write clichés and make them into something that it our own. Seeing this article made me giddy because I myself did not want to just throw away clichés and I feel as though they are building blocks to our vocabulary. He presents great ways to re-write clichés. One good idea that comes from him is to tweak the cliché, so that it is a similar word, but changes the meaning, example, “He was a jerk of all trades”. Great writer, interesting read, made me want to read his books, I think we all could learn something from him!
Weekly Reader. “I'm Cliché, You're Cliché” Writing; Apr/May2006, Vol. 28 Issue 6. 16 April 2008.
The weekly reader corporation is a classroom publishing company that publishes workbooks, skills books and other publications for middle and high school students, the magazine over a wide array of information from science, to current events and can be used as recourses in the classroom. Now, the weekly reader does not like clichés, and makes a good argument why writers should not use them by braking down the cliché and seeing how true the statements really are. Ex)” As easy as pie, have you ever tried to bake a pie from scratch?” It also expresses to watch out for clichés that sneak their way into writing because writers are so use to using them. I got the idea of finishing the statement from this article, since the article is mostly for inside the classroom it had some great ideas for exercises to add to the Wiki. Although, the writer tends to contradict him/her self and use clichés throughout the article for example,” Pull the cliché out by its roots” yeah haven’t heard that one before!
Deutscher, Guy. “Standing on the Shoulders of Clichés” The New York Times; 18 June, 2005. 16 April 2008.
Guy Deutscher has a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Cambridge and not is in the Department of Languages and Culture and the University of Leiden in Holland. He had written two books, his second being The Unfolding of Language. This seems to be a speech that he gives to graduating students so it is interesting to read and easy to relate to. Deutscher argues that without clichés we would be without language and that a cliché necessary during the transformation of “new imagery” and “everyday vocabulary”. From him I learned that clichés are usually used over to the point that the original meaning has been forgotten, and, if you think about it, languages are just made up a clichés! However, they are an important step in the creative process, just as we have improved on inventions such as the light bulb, we can improve on clichés!
Di Salvo, Andrea. “Clichés Can Kill Your Creative Writing”. Ezine Articles.
16 April 2008.
<http://ezinearticles.com/?Cliches-Can-Kill-Your-Creative-Writing&id=340524>
Andrea Di Salvo has a background of writing features, editorials, reviews, profiles, poetry, and fiction, has won the MOTA short story contest in 2002. Writer’s journal magazine has also given her honorable mentions in 2002 and 2004. Salvos article was an easy read and actually quite interesting, before I read it I had no idea how I was going to present all the information I had received, but after going through her thoughts on clichés I had some great Ideas on how to get started, for example, the way I started my we-page was the same way she started hers, (but in different words). She gives great example on how to identify clichés and how to change them into your own by re-writing the cliché. Since she is mostly a short story writer it pertains more too creative writing, but I guess all writing is creative, right? Except an overused cliché that has not been re-written by the writer.
Johnson-Gerald, Mary. “When All Else Fails…Reach for a Turd Cliché - Self-Improvement 101” Ezine Articles. 16 April 2008.
Mary Johnson has a Ph.D. in educational psychiatrist and has over 30 years experience in the fields of education, mental health, and human development. I got the idea of using unexpected clichés from her. She was really funny and it was great to read her article. Out of the all the articles I read I believe that she was the most creative because she was the only one who came up with the idea to keep using clichés, but in an un-expectant way. She seems to not have too many boundaries –I guess you can’t if you are looking for ways to shock people- I see this because she used to word turd, I decided to be a little cliché myself and use the same word for shock factor. It was great to see that someone was not all about re-writing the cliché, but instead, using it for your advantage.
Completed 25 April 2008 By, Kristin Powell
