On Cliche

 

Cliches often annoy me. They spread through the media like viruses. A few that are pandemic currently:

Literally
Not on my bingo card
Obviously
Is no exception
Spoiled for choice
, Indeed.
Again,
To be honest,
I’ve got to be honest
Awesome
So,

The modern style condemns cliché. George Orwell’s first rule for better writing is “Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.”

I generally agree, and watch out for this in my own writing. Surely every journalist is taught not to use them. But these things spread due to laziness and haste. It is always easier to use a canned phrase than one you have invented on your own. And the need for speed in journalism makes them especially tempting.

However, Orwell’s rule can also be misapplied. He is primarily a journalist, and he is thinking of news and opinion writing. Different forms of writing follow different rules.

Fairy tales, for example, are all cliché, all the time. And I love them. The fantasy genre deeply offends me exactly because it tinkers with the conventions, and introduces novelties. Friendly trolls? Misunderstood witches? Balrogs? No, it is essential to fairyland that everything there is eternal, unchanging, and follows strict rules. This is Tir na Nog.

The Western is another such genre. I once compiled for classes the opening scenes of a variety of famous Western films, to make the point. They all began with the vista of a large empty landscape. Then you see a single rider approach a farm or settlement.

And, of course, they all end with that single rider disappearing into the sunset.

Similarly, I once found a very good summary of the necessary elements of the Blues—another such conservative form. As is folk music; full of timeless conventions.

The beauty of these forms is their sense of eternity. Reading them, you are back in the familiar land of your imagination.

Nor is a stock phrase even necessarily a fault in a news story. Orwell’s description fits any idiom, and idioms are a valuable level of language. They make discourse both more colourful and more friendly, as author and reader have a sense of shared knowledge and camaraderie. “He hit that one out of the ballpark.” “Blair was put on his back foot.” They are often bits of preserved wisdom and culture, worth passing on. 

The real problem, and what grates in the examples above, is when a phrase starts being leaned on when it is not appropriate to the message. This degrades the language, our ability to communicate, and the culture.

“Literally” is now almost always used to mean “metaphorically.”

“Not on my bingo card” is now a tiresomely cute way to express surprise. And it does not make sense as an expression of surprise. One is probably more surprised when a number is on one’s bingo card. It would make more sense as an expression of disappointment.

“Obviously,” especially in British English, is generally used when one is about to say something highly debatable. In other words, far from obvious.

“Is no exception” is often used in UK promotional bumpf as well as journalism. It may well be true, but it violates the basic principle of either advertising or news: that you write about the exception, not about what everybody already knows.

“Spoiled for choice” is another dead phrase commonly dropped into advertising copy, or travel writing. “Whether you like X or Y,” “Whether your interests range to V or Z.” are like. These phrases are applied to every destination, every shopping place, and are always more or less true. The immediate message to the reader is actually that this place offers nothing special or unique--only the choices you can get anywhere. Which is the opposite of what they mean to say.

Ending a sentence with “Indeed” is a common British verbal tic. “You are very welcome indeed.” The impression left by that extra word is that the speaker had to think twice about whether the listener really was welcome.

“Again,” to begin a sentence, is almost always used when the speaker has not actually said the thing previously. Or anything much like it.

“To be honest” or “I’ve got to be honest with you” or “To be completely honest” is a red flag that the next thing said will be a lie. If not, it is an open admission that the speaker is usually a lying when he speaks.

“Awesome” is now used as a consolation prize for anything underwhelming.

“So,” is a common verbal tic among press agent types and politicians to preface any response to a question. It implies that what it then said logically follows, and is usually used precisely because the answer they are about to give does not answer the question.

You no doubt have your own list of pet hates.

Stereotypes

 

George Orwell claimed that his only real talent was the ability to look truth straight in the eye, and speak it.

This is the secret of all the arts. Great artists are simply truth tellers; prophets. Most people, as Churchill observed, if they encounter truth, will pick themselves up and dust themselves off as though nothing has happened.

Because I have made a bit of a splash with my poetry lately, someone was writing my bio for publication. In a print interview, I offered them a variety of details about my life.

It did not matter. They ignored what I had written, and substituted stereotypes. I told them that my father was an engineer, and my mother had been raised on a farm. From this, they got “Both parents grew up on Canadian farms and brought a stoicism to child rearing that didn’t mesh well with Stephen’s innately empathic, sensitive nature.”

The author, a certifiably highly intelligent woman with literary interests, was superimposing on me the American Gothic stereotype of the farmer as salt of the earth, but rigid in his views, together with the nineteenth-century romantic idea of the poet as a fragile, sensitive soul. 

What I actually said had contradicted this. It did not matter. The stereotype must be substituted for the reality.

She also of course pegged me in passing as “an avid reader.” Yawn. True, as it happens, and a reasonable inference, but a cliché. Hardly worth saying, for it does not inform the reader.

Then she wrote “Stephen hopes to inspire others who might feel as alone and misunderstood as he did growing up.” The standard stereotype of the poet speaking “his truth,” “finding his voice.” It sounds like something deliberately bland said by a Miss Universe contestant. And not from me; if it is at least somewhat true, I would never say it. It is no excuse for poetry.

I had told her in the interview that I had lived and worked in half a dozen countries, married a ghost, befriended a Korean princess, witnessed miracles, and had at least three near-death experiences. All of this she left out. She even omitted the name of my home town, Gananoque, in favour of simply saying I “grew up in Ontario.” Anything that might be interesting to a reader, or identify me as a real human being, was avoided.

What is going on here?

And it is not just this author. In my career as a student and a teacher, I am always infuriated at how unnecessarily bland, dull, and stereotyped the material in textbooks always is. Whenever I try to change this in our materials, and run it by a colleague for vetting, they always strike out anything interesting, generally without explanation. Remember the old “Dick and Jane” readers? The blandness is deliberate. It is not due to mere incompetence, inability to do better. Most people are terrified of departing from stereotypes.

As a teacher, I find most students too rely on stereotype and cliché when they write. Not doing so is the dividing line between those who can write and those who cannot.

Most of those who pose as artists, even at the professional level, also deal relentlessly in stereotype and cliché. Most poems and paintings of any age look drearily alike. We can predict what they will be before seeing them. There is no reason for such art, as it is only saying things we already think.

The few who break away shine like diamonds.

Most people are insane. They are intentionally insane; it is a moral choice. They do not want to see reality. Only the small minority of those who consider themselves artists who really are artists are sane; and their core readership. It is a minority within a minority.

Why would anyone choose to be insane? For one reason: the truth would not speak well of them. They have a guilty conscience.

Further, people are driven to delusion, to cling to stereotypes and clichés, because they are afraid of truth. Those who are afraid of truth are afraid because they have a guilty conscience.

“Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” John 3: 19-20.

Aside from being the only ones who tell the truth, artists and poets are the only moral people among us.

By their fruits, as Jesus said, you shall know them. 

Those who have eyes to see, see, and ears to hear, hear.

Look

Is it really getting to annoy you, as it does me, that every candidate begins their answer to every question with the word "look."

And I hate how they always make a fist with the index finger wrapped around the thumb instead of pointing. Nobody but a politician does that. That is from Bill Clinton. That is SO cliche.

And so is how every new government expenditure, whatever it is, is an "investment." Some are, some aren't. That's also from Clinton.