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Blog clichés

Yesterday I was interested in various clichés. Today I focus on blog clichés.



So we have two types of “cliché” term interpretation. More global is “cliché” like “some overused stuff”. The other is “cliché” like “hackneyed phrase”. The second type directly concerns to blog writing. So it would be great to compose a list. And of course it should be named “The Worlds’ Greatest Cliché List”.



The first contributions would be:



“This is absolutely uninteresting post. Don’t read it.” Fantastic, but it’s always true.



“Cool stuff”. In this way people name their sites’ or blogs’ link sections.



“Must see” made a good showing and remains popular nowadays. Don’t miss it. Use it in every review in this way: “…and special effects are so great! And orcs are so realistic! MUST SEE!!!” And its pair “must die” was popular before blogging boom occurred. Hope this phrase will rise again.



At http://mw.cracked.com/2005/07/blog_cliche_roundup.php there’s a worthy blog cliché roundup. MUST SEE!!!



Here is some more COOL STUFF: http://tireddad2.blogspot.com/2006/08/top-ten-appalling-blog-cliches.html





Technorati Tags: cliche, cliches, cliche list, blog cliche, blog cliches, blog, blogs, blogging, wrting, must see, cool stuff

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

Make your texts more attractive using vivid comparisons

Your posts will look better if you use vivid comparisons.

Here is a remarkable quote from “The Invisible Man” by Wells:

“His feet, save for socks of irregular open-work, were bare, his big toes were broad, and pricked like the ears of a watchful dog.”

“Big toes are ears of a watchful dog” is a smart parallel.

Kipling wrote in his “Puck of Pook's Hill”:

“Then he showed us how to hunt wolves and those great red deer with horns like Jewish candlesticks.”

This unexpected turn makes me imagine a deer with Jewish candlesticks instead of horns. And maybe it’s a good idea for some photoshop.

I remember one great comparison from Marc Chagall’s “My life”. He described a hut as a potato wetted in a pickle. It’s quite marginal, isn’t it?

So I offer you to comment this post using some your great comparisons. It may be a good exercise if you are thinking of how to improve your writing style.

And here is one more thing. I’ve an idea of making a series of such exercises in this blog. So, you’re welcome.

Tags: writing - writing exercises - exercises - creativity - write - books - tips - writing tips - quotes - comparisons

Researching bookmarks. Part 3. Conclusion

4. I noticed that about 15% of my bookmarks concerning me in person. Mean sometimes I save links to outstanding discussions where I’ve participated, to sites where I’ve done something. And also I’ve bookmarked my accounts at last.fm, flickr.com, plime.com and so on.

So in theory involving people in your blog processes, asking them to do something engaging for your site stimulate visitors to bookmark. Readers may get your RSS feeds, and maybe it’s even better, than bookmarking.

5. Everybody has some just cool links. For example it can be web comics’ page.

If you’ve managed to do something great, and somebody except you admits it, try to reflect it in your blog. You may find some unexpected associate. Well, if you’ve really done cool thing, you’re lucky :) My compliments

You’ve noticed for sure that I haven’t too much shocking facts about bookmarking. But here’s short conclusion. If you follow it you’ll have some more chances to be bookmarked.

1. Arrange useful reference lists.
2. Post concrete and particularized stuff.
3. Keep your blog carefully.
4. Involve visitors in discussions and contests.
5. Write cool :)

Tags: bookmark - bookmarking - research - conclusion - analysis - analyse - browser - involve - cool - stuff

Bookmarking research. Part 2

Let’s continue bookmarking analysis.

2. Everybody likes entertainments but also has a list of interests. For example, I’m interested in web-development, blogging, Internet on the whole, computer role-playing games, roller skating and so about 70% of my bookmarks are quite particularized. Remaining 30% are quite heterogeneous, mixed and casual.

Resume: suppose people bookmark something of a particular speciality, specific and concrete. I’d rather bookmark some blog on post-rock than just cool music blog without any specialization.

3. I’d say that about 60% of web pages I’ve bookmarked contain articles or stories. 40% are site roots (home pages). The first means I’ll return to particular page once or twice to refresh some facts in my mind. Or maybe I’ll send link to this page to my friends.

The second means I’m interested in the site and its various contents and I’ll visit it again and again without any concrete purpose hoping to discover something worthy (e. g. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com).

I think that the second variant is much better. So write good posts and make your blog history attractive :)

To be continued…

Tags: blogging - bookarking - bookmarks - research - analysis - analyse - facts - visit - posts - attractive

Some facts about user's bookmarks. Bookmarks research. Part 1

Someday I’ll write about blog success measurement. And now I just say that one of the best indicators of your blog’s success is a quantity of people who visit your blog typing address in or using bookmarks.

So my desire to find out what people usually bookmark is quite natural. I’ll start my research analyzing my own browser bookmarks. Here’re some facts about my 110 Opera bookmarks which may somehow help to understand bookmarking psychology.

1. I have some links to online blogging tools: http://co.mments.com, http://blogsearch.google.com, Technorati Tag Maker at http://www.speciousreasoning.com/tags/ and so on.
2. 9 links to documentation resources (e. g. http://wiki.cakephp.org)
3. 1 link to webcomics (http://www.qwantz.com/) and 5 links to some amazing pages (http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, http://totallyabsurd.com/archive.htm)
4. 5 links to libraries and book lists.
5. 9 links to my site accounts at http://del.icio.us, http://worth1000.com, http://last.fm and so on.
6. 6 RPG-related links.
7. 10 links to blogs (7 are themed blogs)
8. About 20 links for webmasters (e. g. http://urlinvestigator.com, http://google.com/addurl, http://abouturl.com, http://sitemeter.com)
9. The other links are just cool links, which are difficult to categorize :)

And here follows some analysis.

1. I have about 10 links to pronounced lists and tops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-apocalyptic or http://www.alvit.de/blog/article/nifty-tools-and-tutorials-for-creating-diagrams-charts-and-chart-flows). I’ve run into them some time and have decided they were very useful. But unfortunately I’ve not much time to explore them. So I visit half of these links rarely. The other half is waiting for consideration.

Resume: you may compose lists and post them in your blog, readers will bookmark them, but don’t hope they’ll return again and again just to reread this list. Some solution: you may update your list constantly or you may write more interesting posts in your blog.

To be continued…

Tags: bookmarks - bookmarking - research - analysis - exploration - investigation - blog - blogging - success - facts