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Abstract

t’s simply not true.Pull up a once hurtful image that you believe is “healed” and you may be in for a surprise. If it’s at the wrong time in your life — a time when your mind is weakened by anxiety or further loss — that image of an old wound may suddenly ignite and burn in your heart as fiercely as the day it first came to be. Yeah, picking at scabs is messy business.Every cloud has a silver lining.I don’t know what planet you’re living on, but every time I commit a blooper, I don’t get a hidden reward. Oh, if I stretch it, I can make this cliché sound true, but only if I search and search. Just recently I was scammed out of about $3,000. I won’t bother with the details, but suffice it to say, I was stupid and naïve. Where is the silver lining here?Oh, of course the optimist will say that I learned a valuable lesson: that there are bad people out there willing to take my money and run with it. Or another equally shallow optimist might say that knowledge is a wonderful thing and I’ve now added a bit more to my store. But truthfully speaking, I’m still out the money, I still feel stupid, and the knowledge I’ve accrued merely exists to make a mockery of me . So let’s get rid of this cliché, please. Enough said.I love you more than life itself.Your psychiatrist would probably push the panic button if he heard you say that cliché once too often. It’s a common refrain for a suicidal individual and no one can tell me differently. If you don’t respect yourself enough to live through the ups and downs of life, how can you really love someone else? This cliché sounds passionate and romantic, but when you really analyze it, it’s full of holes some as big as the Grand Canyon.With experience comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes experience.I can agree to the first part of this cliché if your experience is of the normal variety — for instance, looking for a job, dating, or selecting appropriate clothes. But the second part of that cliché does not follow.Does it mean that your newfound wisdom gives you the ability to confront an experience in a better, more meaningful way? If so, you’d better line up your experiences to correlate with that wisdom.For instance, if you’ve just bought a house and the roof leaks, your newfound wisdom tells you that perhaps you should have had a home inspection before buying the house. On the other hand, this newfound wisdom about home inspection does not transfer to other situations such as purchasing a dog. For that you’ll have to gather the wisdom on the AKC website. Another experience that may or may not convey wisdom.And

Options

they lived happily ever afterI’ve included this one for the sake of my dear departed mother (honest injun) who never read a fairy tale without scrunching up her face at that ending remark, “they lived happily ever after.” Only a child believes this cliché, and kids from dysfunctional or divorced homes know by the age of 10 years (or maybe even 10 months) that this cliché has outlived its usefulness and should be consigned to the Dictionary of Stupid Phraseology.Strangely enough, however, women in the romantic love portion of relationships actually believe the above cliché; five years later after two kids and 200 loads of wash they wonder how they could have been so misled.A rose by any other name would smell as sweetThis Shakespearean quote is related to the cliché “A rose is a rose is a rose” by Gertrude Stein, who felt that she just had to make certain that people learned to identify objects by their names. On the other hand, Juliet’s quote from “Romeo and Juliet” tells the reader that the identifying characteristics of a rose are odor, sweetness, and beauty. But substitute anything other than a rose for this last cliché and you can easily come up with something ugly or scary — e.g. An ogre by any other name would look as horrific.The grass is always greener on the other side of the fenceThis is one of those clichés that make you want to gag. No, I want to scream instead. The grass is not always greener when it belongs to someone else. Sometimes you are relieved to find out that the crabgrass you are observing in someone else’s marriage is quite a bit worse than your current landscaping status. My conclusion is that anyone who uses this cliché should only use it to make a narrow point; otherwise, it’s about as useful as saying “dead men tell no tales.”Good things come to those who waitNo, no, a thousand times no. Good things don’t necessarily come to those who wait. Sometimes people just wait and wait and don’t earn a just reward. This cliché praises inaction, which might have gone over well during the Victorian era, but in the 21st century, it will not bring you kudos. Too many people tolerate bad employers, dull jobs, and abusive spouses because that “good thing” is right around the corner. I’d say if that “good” thing isn’t Netflix, you’re probably on the wrong track.These ten cliches only scratch the surface of half-truisms and maxims that have influenced (and possibly ruined) people’s lives over the centuries. Using them is literary suicide in the opinion of most editors, and following their precepts is a risk no rational citizen should take.</article></body>

Language

Cliches that Stick in Your Craw

My favorite clunkers

Don’t you just love it when someone pulls a cliche out of their pocket and applies it to something serious you just said? Did you say no? Well, I’m the same way. Cliches can be like puns — you feel like holding your nose or making an obscene noise when you hear them. You feel like saying, is that all you can come up with?

It’s not that I’m a language snob, but there are boundaries better left uncrossed. Here are a few:

You can only live life forward and understand it backward.

This is one of those truisms that hurt so much you want to hurl the sentence into midair and nuke it to smithereens. You want to say, why didn’t I know this sooner, like the day I was born? Maybe my life would have been entirely different if I had paused every year or so and reconsidered my options. But no, I had to go on living as if time was infinite. Like so many of us, I never reviewed my decisions until too late. By then I was an unhappy elementary school teacher who hated kids (at least I got that part right when I opted out of the patter of little feet).

It’s better to love and be lost than never to have loved at all.

Anyone who’s had a boyfriend and then got shafted will tell you that this cliché is simply untrue. I’d give anything not to remember the romance and wonderful high of that first love and the quiet intimacies we shared. They come back to haunt me at untoward times and cripple me with the depth of their ardor and passion. First-love is priceless, but it’s a price that no one wants to pay if they’re on the losing end. I was.

Time heals all wounds

This cliché is tricky and if you’re like me, you parse every word for its precise definition. “Heal” to me means a return to the way it was, untouched by disease or disorder. Yes, time can chip away at wounds, but time will never restore your body to what it once was. There are ugly scars. Again the subject is usually love since the loss of it really wreaks havoc on the body and mind.

Time also plays tricks with wounds. You think for a moment that the lover you had in college or the dog you mourned so fervently are just mere memories. Harmless images that you can pull up any time. But it’s simply not true.

Pull up a once hurtful image that you believe is “healed” and you may be in for a surprise. If it’s at the wrong time in your life — a time when your mind is weakened by anxiety or further loss — that image of an old wound may suddenly ignite and burn in your heart as fiercely as the day it first came to be. Yeah, picking at scabs is messy business.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

I don’t know what planet you’re living on, but every time I commit a blooper, I don’t get a hidden reward. Oh, if I stretch it, I can make this cliché sound true, but only if I search and search. Just recently I was scammed out of about $3,000. I won’t bother with the details, but suffice it to say, I was stupid and naïve. Where is the silver lining here?

Oh, of course the optimist will say that I learned a valuable lesson: that there are bad people out there willing to take my money and run with it. Or another equally shallow optimist might say that knowledge is a wonderful thing and I’ve now added a bit more to my store. But truthfully speaking, I’m still out the money, I still feel stupid, and the knowledge I’ve accrued merely exists to make a mockery of me . So let’s get rid of this cliché, please. Enough said.

I love you more than life itself.

Your psychiatrist would probably push the panic button if he heard you say that cliché once too often. It’s a common refrain for a suicidal individual and no one can tell me differently. If you don’t respect yourself enough to live through the ups and downs of life, how can you really love someone else? This cliché sounds passionate and romantic, but when you really analyze it, it’s full of holes some as big as the Grand Canyon.

With experience comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes experience.

I can agree to the first part of this cliché if your experience is of the normal variety — for instance, looking for a job, dating, or selecting appropriate clothes. But the second part of that cliché does not follow.

Does it mean that your newfound wisdom gives you the ability to confront an experience in a better, more meaningful way? If so, you’d better line up your experiences to correlate with that wisdom.

For instance, if you’ve just bought a house and the roof leaks, your newfound wisdom tells you that perhaps you should have had a home inspection before buying the house. On the other hand, this newfound wisdom about home inspection does not transfer to other situations such as purchasing a dog. For that you’ll have to gather the wisdom on the AKC website. Another experience that may or may not convey wisdom.

And they lived happily ever after

I’ve included this one for the sake of my dear departed mother (honest injun) who never read a fairy tale without scrunching up her face at that ending remark, “they lived happily ever after.” Only a child believes this cliché, and kids from dysfunctional or divorced homes know by the age of 10 years (or maybe even 10 months) that this cliché has outlived its usefulness and should be consigned to the Dictionary of Stupid Phraseology.

Strangely enough, however, women in the romantic love portion of relationships actually believe the above cliché; five years later after two kids and 200 loads of wash they wonder how they could have been so misled.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

This Shakespearean quote is related to the cliché “A rose is a rose is a rose” by Gertrude Stein, who felt that she just had to make certain that people learned to identify objects by their names. On the other hand, Juliet’s quote from “Romeo and Juliet” tells the reader that the identifying characteristics of a rose are odor, sweetness, and beauty. But substitute anything other than a rose for this last cliché and you can easily come up with something ugly or scary — e.g. An ogre by any other name would look as horrific.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence

This is one of those clichés that make you want to gag. No, I want to scream instead. The grass is not always greener when it belongs to someone else. Sometimes you are relieved to find out that the crabgrass you are observing in someone else’s marriage is quite a bit worse than your current landscaping status. My conclusion is that anyone who uses this cliché should only use it to make a narrow point; otherwise, it’s about as useful as saying “dead men tell no tales.”

Good things come to those who wait

No, no, a thousand times no. Good things don’t necessarily come to those who wait. Sometimes people just wait and wait and don’t earn a just reward. This cliché praises inaction, which might have gone over well during the Victorian era, but in the 21st century, it will not bring you kudos. Too many people tolerate bad employers, dull jobs, and abusive spouses because that “good thing” is right around the corner. I’d say if that “good” thing isn’t Netflix, you’re probably on the wrong track.

These ten cliches only scratch the surface of half-truisms and maxims that have influenced (and possibly ruined) people’s lives over the centuries. Using them is literary suicide in the opinion of most editors, and following their precepts is a risk no rational citizen should take.