Cliches
I thought of writing a post about greatest hoaxes but discovered that this theme is widely covered at http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/
And so I decided to tell you a little about clichés. Cliché is a trite, hackneyed, stereotype or overused expression. Every life sphere has its own clichés. It’s better to avoid them speaking or writing, didn’t you know? :) By the way I’ve just used one. The phrase “life sphere” sounds pretty but is so trite.
Suppose that most often we come across clichés on the news. Here are some groaners with comments from http://www.newswriting.com/groaners.htm
Slain – Dragons are slain. People are killed.
Hospitalized – Bathrooms get sanitized. Shirts get Martinized. People do not get hospitalized. They’re in the hospital.
Area Residents - “Shhh, Tommy, don’t play the drums so loud, you’ll wake the area residents!” Normal people don’t refer to their neighbors this way. Why should we?
Blog http://tommangan.net/banned/ is devoted to groaners too and it is remarkable for its epigraph:
“Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.”
George Orwell
Movie clichés are the objects of ridicule for a long time. For example, no matter how dead you think you've killed a bad guy, he can still get up at least 3 more times. You can find villains, cars, alcohol, wars, asteroids, aliens and other movie stereotypes at http://www.moviecliches.com/
Phrases “someone once said... [followed by an obscure quotation]”, ”24/7”, “...just doing my job” are common life clichés. See some more at http://hypocrisytoday.com/cliches.html
Worth1000.com photoshop contests also have some overused entries: Britney Spears, George Bush, Statue of Liberty, Star Wars and terrorist references. Read FAQ section http://www.worth1000.com/faq.asp#3 for more information. I'd add Lord of the Rings references to this list.
It’s not hard to find collections of different areas clichés (try to search Google “RPG clichés” or “music videos clichés”).
Finally one more time: filter your speech and texts, don’t use hackneyed expressions and your image will be more attractive :)
Tags: cliche - movie cliches - RPG cliches - news cliches - cliches - common cliches - expressions - phrases - cliche list - popular cliche
