6 April 2020 – Toil and Trouble with Clichés

Today’s post is just for fun. The focus is on repurposing clichés. Writers either love or hate clichés. Some writers don’t even know when they are using clichés. Maybe a sadly large portion of writers don’t know. Maybe if that’s true, they shouldn’t try to write. Makes no difference for today’s fun and games. So, let’s roll on. If my tomfoolery offends you, don’t worry. Time heals all wounds.

Just to get the ball rolling, here is a list of 12 clichés “that need to be permanently retired” from writing in the opinion of the Writer’s Digest team of editors, as reported by Brian A. Klems:

1.Avoid it like the plague

2. Dead as a doornail

3. Take the tiger by the tail

4. Low hanging fruit

5. If only walls could talk

6. The pot calling the kettle black

7. Think outside the box

8. Thick as thieves

9. But at the end of the day

10. Plenty of fish in the sea

11. Every dog has its day

12. Like a kid in a candy store

I would add one of my own deletions; it is seen/heard in writing and in speech, appearing in some form of “reach out,” as in “Feel free to reach out to me.” Where did that one come from? What does it even mean in contrast to “Please call/email me,” or the like. I don’t know about you, but for me, the reach-out phrase produces an image of someone hanging onto a thin branch against a cliff, reaching upward to a potential savior. Personally, I don’t want to find myself in either position.

Have you ever heard anyone say, "Ugh, that's such a cliché,"? Clichés are terms, phrases, or even ideas that, upon their inception, may have been striking and thought-provoking but became unoriginal through repetition and overuse. Eventually, popularity made them seem trite, turning them into what we now know as clichés. Put that in your pipe and inhale it. You will recognize many of the examples of clichés throughout this post. And those are just the tip of the iceberg. So, arrange your deck chairs and read on Macduff, And saved be him that first titters, ‘That’s not enough!”

As the French poet Gérard de Nerval said, "The first man who compared a woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile."

For your reading fun, and later exploration with a challenge for you below.

Dog and Mouse

                                    Slow as a doornail

                                                the mouse whistled to her mate

                                                            the doornail poked the dog lying there

                                                                        he whipped his tail across the baby’s bottom

                                                                                    and went to sleep sitting up

Bird and Bug

                                    A bushy bird landed on a rug

                                                where a bug snugly napped but woke up

                                                            when the bushy bird perched saying, 

                                                            “Give me your legs and I will give you shoes

                                                                        to walk a block on my wings.”

                                    “Anything unworthy will only do wrong,” the bug replied

Worm and Cat

                                    The bookworm judged the spilled milk and laughed

                                                saying, “See the silver lining in this best white magic?”

                                                Then the worm slipped inside the book cover

                                                            The cat looked on twisting

                                                                        her glittering gold knickers and biting her tongue

Lion and Flies

                                    The storm before the calm

                                                scared the witty spineless lion 

who walked off with his tail touching his stomach

                                    The flies on his back took their time laughing between the lines

                                                at the speed of darkness

Mary and the Ferret

                                    Mary had a mutton leg

                                                and her ugly hair was a sin

                                                            then she felt weak as a gentle ferret

                                    She fortified her axons and went about steeling the weak kitten

                                                                        What nerves!

                                                

Spider, Apples, and Eggs

                                                The itsy spider got down on the right side of the bed

                                                In the evening, she fell across the bitsy spout

                                                            and all her eggs broke against the wall

                                                                        like a kid in a store throwing low-hanging apples

                                                who got up near the tree carrying a basket of green eggs and ham

And they all lived uncomplaining ever after

Background:

The origin of this post comes from a workshop I attended last autumn in Grand Marais – The North Shore Readers & Writers Festival. I believe the presenter’s purpose was to enliven his otherwise pretty dull presentation. He accomplished his goal. We participants agreed that it was entertaining to take the most familiar and make something new. I’m pretty sure I wrote “Dog and Mouse” at the workshop, but I can’t find my notes. Typical. Just like the absent-minded professor.

Every cliché was, at one time, a new and original expression or idea. In most cases, clichés become clichés because, originally, they were so compelling that they became popular and, eventually, overused. Martin Amis characterized all good writing as being a war against cliché. Is there a whiff of snobbery here? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide. In my opinion, clichés are indicators of bad writing primarily because they signal a lack of thought by the writer, and a lack of effort. A writer using clichés isn't engaged enough with his or her ideas, narrative, setting, characters, or themes to describe them clearly, specifically, honestly, or truly. A writer using clichés is not writing with intention; words are free to flow without subjecting them to scrutiny.

The word cliché has French origins which is why you'll often see it with an accent over the "e," but you can also write it as "cliche" in English. When printing presses were used, the cast iron plate that reproduced the words, phrases, or images was called a stereotype. The noise that casting plate made sounded like "cliché," meaning click, to French printers, so this onomatopoeia word became printer's jargon for the stereotype. Thus, cliché came to mean a word or phrase that gets repeated often. Ufffda!

Shakespeare is so widely read, that some of his original turns of phrase have become highly popular and thought of as clichés. Here are just a few examples:

"Break the ice" (The Taming of the Shrew)

"The world's my oyster" (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

"What's done is done" (Macbeth)

"Kill with kindness" (The Taming of the Shrew)

"Heart of gold" (Henry V)

Exploration 1: Care to try one or more of the short poems above, decompose them into their source clichés? Please be generous and share your results with us all with a comment to this post.

Exploration 2: Is writing poems like these a waste of time?

Exploration 3: So, want to try your hand at this cliché game? At the end of this post, you will find a lengthy list for your reference. Try one or both of these exercises:

1.     The gray highlighted clichés are the ones that reside in altered form in my creations above. See if you can match the highlighted clichés in the list with the location in one of the poems.

2.     Write one or more of your own repurposed cliché poems. Here are some tools you can use:

a.     recombine and reimagine the clichés

b.     change a word or words

c.     break up one or more clichés and recombine them into your poem.

d.     use opposite words/terms

e.     take two or more clichés and mix them up

f.      incorporate a child’s rhyme into the poem, but not in the original word-order

g.     dangling participles can be helpful in twisting clichés 

Have fun even if you don’t want to. It will prove to be a barrel of lizards.

___________________________

Here’s your list, if you choose to take up the challenge of Exploration 3, point 2:

·       read between the lines

·       play your cards right

·       it’s an uphill battle

·       better safe than sorry

·       you can’t judge a book by its cover

·       bring to the table

·       low-hanging fruit

·       the grass is always greener on the other side

·       ignorance is bliss

• Weak as a kitten
• gentle as a lamb
• Had nerves of steel
• Ugly as sin
• Every cloud has a silver lining
• Don't cry over spilled milk
• The calm before the storm
• Laughter is the best medicine

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

·       Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.

·       I'm like a kid in a candy store.

·       early bird gets the worm

·       can’t judge a book by its cover

·       Every cloud has a silver lining.

·  ·       Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.

·       I'm like a kid in a candy store.

·       early bird gets the worm

·       can’t judge a book by its cover

·       Every cloud has a silver lining.

·       Don't cry over spilled milk.

·       The calm before the storm.

·       Laughter is the best medicine.

·       Love you more than life itself.

·       Scared out of my wits.

·       Frightened to death.

·       All that glitters isn't gold

·       Don't get your knickers in a twist

·       All for one, and one for all

·       Kiss and make up

·       He has his tail between his legs

·       And they all lived happily ever after

·       Cat got your tongue?

·       Read between the lines

·       Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed

·       We're not laughing at you we're laughing with you

Clichés that Describe Time

·       Only time will tell

·       In the nick of time

·       Lost track of time

·       Lasted an eternity

·       Just a matter of time

·       A waste of time

·       Time flies

·       In a jiffy

·       The time of my life

·       At the speed of light

Clichés that Describe People

·       As old as the hills

·       Fit as a fiddle

·       Without a care in the world

·       A diamond in the rough

·       Brave as a lion

·       Weak as a kitten

·       gentle as a lamb

·       Had nerves of steel

·       Ugly as sin

Clichés that Describe Life, Love, and Emotions

·       Opposites attract

·       Every cloud has a silver lining

·       Don't cry over spilled milk

·       The calm before the storm

·       Laughter is the best medicine

·       Love you more than life itself

·       Scared out of my wits

·       Frightened to death

·       All is fair in love and war

·       All's well that ends well

·       Haste makes waste

·       The writing's on the wall

·       Time heals all wounds

·       What goes around comes around

·       When life gives you lemons, make lemonade

·       Head over heels in love

·       Gut-wrenching pain

·       Heart-stopping fear