The real entry on clichés will just have to take a number
As part of my research [audible gasp from reader] for the forthcoming entry about clichés, I came upon this amusing Cliché Finder, a search engine for clichés. You enter a word, it offers a list of associated clichés. I like it. In case you were wondering, one inspiration for a post about clichés is my recognition that I use them with some frequency in this blog. You see, nothing that happens in this blog escapes my notice, and none of it happens by accident. When I use clichés, it's very often intentional, or at least part of a general goal of setting my characteristically arch tone. [arch: 2 a : MISCHIEVOUS, SAUCY b : marked by a deliberate and often forced irony, brashness, or impudence]
And before I finish digressing and get to the operative digression of this post, those of you who know what a pain it is to code those é's should now grasp what love I have for my readers. Most people would just write "cliche" and have done with it. [Yes, I know about "have done with it." See above.]
Anyway, I was trying out the Cliché Finder with the word "ear," a good candidate, and it produced quite a list. I particularly liked "He/She must have learned to whisper in a sawmill!" I hadn't heard that one. A nice thing about clichés is that they are not static. An old one can go out of vogue, become unknown and then seem reasonably fresh. For example, Fowler (1908) lists "it stands to reason" but also "it would be a slaying of the slain," which I've never encountered and has been completely displaced by "beating a dead horse."
But this entry is really about a funny story all this brought to mind. Not so long ago I was dining with good friends and their young children. At the time, their son, 9, was joined at the hip [intentional--see above] to whatever "Goosebumps" book he had going. We were sharing some jokes and I asked his father whether a dead-baby joke would be age appropriate. I previewed the joke for the father and he thought probably not. This frustrated the son, who could tell it was going to be a good joke and promised us that it couldn't be any worse than the things in his book. I still wouldn't tell the joke so he wanted to do a twenty-questions thing to figure it out.
First question: "Does it take place in a sawmill?"
That's the story.
If you are still wondering about the joke, it is the one written in a margin of National Lampoon's "High School Yearbook Parody."
Q: What's the difference between a truckload of bowling balls and a truckload of dead babies?
A: You can't unload a truckload of bowling balls with a pitchfork.
Hey, I don't write 'em, I just report 'em. And propose telling 'em to small children.
posted at 11:54 AM
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