Reading the Newsweek magazine is high on my weekly must-do list. One interesting feature is the "My Turn" column where this week’s topic is "Let’s Think Outside the Box of Bad Cliches." The author works as a college professor who finds that students use too many cliches in their written work which the professor thinks leads to sloppy thinking. He gives examples such as the criminal being caught in broad daylight, as if there is such a thing to contrast it to narrow daylight.
Rather than re-using his other examples, I can recall many from my own supply. It’s easy to accuse someone of being a slow or shallow thinker by saying he (or she) has the IQ of a fencepost, runs a quart low, is a bubble head, or is as dumb as an ox. When someone dies it’s easy to say he’s gone to a better place, breathed his last, gone on to his reward, bought the farm, or made his last pit stop. Politics uses many cliches: he’s a visionary, a man of character, a dark horse in this race, or people will vote with their hearts. The sports world uses an abundance of them: he’s a franchise player, it’s a nail-biter, gut-check time, he always gives 110%, he has a rifle for an arm, or he’s a future hall-of-famer.
In the last couple of days I’ve heard these used. Regarding Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska who’s being investigated, one TV commentator said that the chickens were coming home to roost. Another announcer talked of the Pat Tillman shooting in Afghanistan as a perfect storm of mistakes. How about AG Gonzales facing a firestorm of controversy? A favorite of mine deals with a person who tries to portray somebody he’s not: all hat, no cattle.
Going back to the accusation that overuse of cliches makes for sloppy thinking, I would have to agree with the professor. It’s not often that we can read an author or listen to a speaker who uses proper English grammar for the bulk of his presentation. Most of the time they run around like a chicken with its head cut off. You know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and he has bats in his belfry. He brandishes his smoking gun and puts everyone on the same page as he goes for extra yardage. Oops, I just threw up an airball.
