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Thursday, June 08, 2006

An unfocused post about clichés

I suppose it follows from having a language based on words that words themselves do not get identified as clichés. Words can become overused, but unless they are new or novel coinages no one ever suggests they be stricken from our vocabularies. But language authorities will brand overused phrases as clichés, demanding that good writers eschew them. There are more phrases than words, and more room for originality in turning a phrase than choosing a word, but there is a time and a place for the right cliché, as this sentence demonstrates twice. I could have avoided "turning a phrase," but to what end? There I could have avoided "but to what end?" . . . but . . . well, you take the point. Aaaagh. See, when you look for them, they're everywhere. They can be good rhetorical shorthand: "a time and a place for" imports a sense of reasonableness and balance, etc. Some of the most useful metaphors are clichés.

It is still good advice to scour your writing for clichés and hackneyed constructions, but my real issue is with clichés of thought.

Here's one example from the recent compromise of veterans' records: Stolen data 'breach of trust'. Sure, fine, it's "breach of trust." But what a meaningless, dopey thing to say about someone taking a laptop computer home and getting it stolen. That unlucky VA employee doesn't exactly belong in the "Timeline of Traitors" (which, according to a poster at Safeco Field some years back has only three data points: Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold and Alex Rodriguez).

My current favorite cliché of thought is "man of integrity." Typically you encounter this phrase uttered by a single woman as part of the sentence "I am looking for a man of integrity." I must just note a few things about this construction:
  • What, exactly, does it mean?

  • Who, exactly, is going to hold himself out as a "man of duplicity" or, really, as anything other than a "man of integrity"--regardless of the actual true state of affairs?

  • It seems that very few people are looking for a "woman of integrity." Is that variation of the phrase supposed to be redundant, or just of no interest?

  • Human nature and the unwritten laws of irony being what they are, proclaiming that you are looking for "a man of integrity" makes as much sense as wading around the Great Barrier Reef, flinging chum into the water while announcing that you're looking for pretty, pretty starfish. [This bullet point has just been awarded the inaugural "Don't Trust Snakes Award for Metaphorical Fancy," which I may henceforth bestow on myself from time to time. Congratulations, MWR!]
Seriously, though, do you want to seek out someone who self-identifies as a "man of integrity"? I'm reminded of Emerson's comment that "the louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."


posted at 11:15 PM

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