10-30-2014, 12:31 PM
Cliché is relative. It depends on your audience. When I first read Oliver Twist
I thought: "Jeezus! This guy has 27 clichés on every damn page". (Shakespeare
fared much worse.)
It seems this audience, including myself, has heard your phrases so many times
before that they've worn out, cried wolf, been emptied of meaning, couldn't hold
a flogged dead horse of a different color even after it had left the barn bound
to be swapped for a kingdom with nary a look in its mouth or a prayer on its wing.
When a clichéd phrase falls into disuse, it can rise again like the Phoenix; when
it's used enough it becomes an idiom. But all that gray in between...
Readers are idiots, it's best to avoid them.
I thought: "Jeezus! This guy has 27 clichés on every damn page". (Shakespeare
fared much worse.)
It seems this audience, including myself, has heard your phrases so many times
before that they've worn out, cried wolf, been emptied of meaning, couldn't hold
a flogged dead horse of a different color even after it had left the barn bound
to be swapped for a kingdom with nary a look in its mouth or a prayer on its wing.
When a clichéd phrase falls into disuse, it can rise again like the Phoenix; when
it's used enough it becomes an idiom. But all that gray in between...
Readers are idiots, it's best to avoid them.
a brightly colored fungus that grows in bark inclusions