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Showing posts from April, 2014

Stumbling backwards into the future one cliché at a time

Cliché - noun :  a word or phrase that has been used so often that it has become annoying. Often regarded as grammatically lazy and revealing of a lack of imagination ... I use them frequently - time after time, in fact. Some clichés, however, are  worth repeating - which undoubtedly promotes their designation as clichés. But if you think about it, a cliché is a cliché precisely because it states something in a succinct, often poetic and memorable way. We hear the words and instantly 'get' their meaning. I like clichés when used sparingly (I suspect a 'sparingly used cliché' is an oxymoron. But I don't care. In my grammatically challenged world, I also like to wantonly split the infinitive. Wanton splitting meaning to split with careless abandon - gulp! What a lot of words. I prefer a lazy economy of vocabulary and moving on from splitting infinitives, if a cliché fits the bill - as that one just did - then I use it. Why not?) Deep in the mire of this cliché