Back in the days when print was ‘set’ by the laborious process of adding one metal letter at a time to a rack, French printers had the idea of keeping frequently used phrases already made up, so that they could be slotted in where needed. These phrases were called clichés. The word derives from the verb cliquer – the printers would take the stereotyped phrase and ‘click’ it into place. The OED quotes Charles Babbage – and Charles Darwin – using the term in this old-fashioned context.
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I, Editor by Henry Gee
This is the Nature Network and therefore Terribly Extremely Very Serious foothold for Nature Senior Editor Henry Gee. If you want fun and games, visit http://cromercrox.blogspot.com/
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Clichés Nouveaux
- Date:
- Thursday, 25 Jun e 2009 - 13:31 UTC
Clichés, plainly, have their uses. French printers found that they saved time. These days, however, they are used to save thought, being slotted into place to make up for a poverty of vocabulary. Sports presenters
whose lifts do not always seem to go to the top flooroften grope in the cliché box when vocabulary fails. At this time of year, contestants at Wimbledon who lose matches don’t lose; neither are they vanquished, defeated or even thrashed – they crash out. Footballers who win matches are reportedly over the moon; those who lose, sick as a parrot. (Aside – is it possible for parrots to be sick?)The field of middle management, however, offers
rick pickingsa wealth of colourful examples. Sure, there is the hilarious mangling of English, over-use of technical terms and the metastasis of neologism – building capacity, synergizing entities, and so on – but where clichés come in is in the use of visual metaphor to such an extent that it becomes vitiated of any real meaning.The one I dislike most at the moment is roll out, used to refer to the imminent implementation of some procedure, software, machinery or product. To me, however, the imagery seems distracting. Yes, of course, new products can be rolled out, quite literally, from the back of delivery vans, but it can also be used to refer to dough, cake icing, barrels, red carpets, or even (with thanks to Dr J. G. of Sussex) people coming out of pubs at closing time.
Other visual metaphors include (and I must thank several Facebook friends for suggesting some of these)
- running it up the flagpole to see if anyone salutes it (trying out a new idea);
- thinking outside the box (being innovative);
- blue-skies thinking (research without any immediate propect of return);
- doing one’s homework (doing proper research and development),
- the elephant in the room (an important matter of common concern that everyone present is trying to ignore), and
- pushing the envelope (which is like thinking outside the box, while still inside the box, I guess).
I think it’s time to invent some new clichés. They should include imagery that’s wildly colourful, speculative, surreal or even downright inappropriate to the actual process to which the metaphor refers.
I have a few modest examples here.
- Wallabize Crop Circles (go round in circles but achieving nothing);
- Pouring Linseed Oil on the School Cormorant (adding unnecessary functionality to an application, q.v. ‘over-egging the pudding’, ‘gilding the lily’ – with apologies to Monty Python);
- Green-Bearding (identifying markets or user groups with shared interests);
- Flensing the Humpback (getting on with a disagreeable task that no-one else wants to perform for reasons of taste, time, resources or even legality).
OOFTUGs all round to any more that
tickle my fancymake me ROTFLmeet with my editorial approbation.It’s not often that one demonstrates an excess of vocabulary. A couple of days ago while on the way to school, Gee Minor (aged 11) made some daft remark, the nature of which eludes me at present.
“Be practical!” I urged her.
“The word practical is not in my vocabulary”, she replied, with some hauteur.
“Oh come on,” I remonstrated. “Of course it is”.
“Well, yes, it is”, she admitted, “But it’s somewhere at the back so I don’t get it out very often”.
Last updated: Thursday, 25 Jun 2009 - 13:31 UTC
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Comments
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Henry – Earlier I posted my least favorite phrases at work and provided my own new ones, so I appreciate your feelings on the cliches/phrases issue. On another note I cannot wait to incorporate your WCC into a presentation I am preparing for Friday! You have saved me much effort in trying to diplomatically explain my feelings on my recent efforts. Thank you.
Thanks, Craig. Glad you can put it in your pipe and smoke it.
I have some sympathy for sports commentators using clichés during commentary. They don’t have time to think up new ways of saying things (unless it’s an endurance event like the International 50km Subduction Zone Championships).
Henry – Just an update. The Wallabize Crop Circle is now being used in the form “a WCC excercise” I hope this is fine with you. It is in my presentation for tomorrow in that form.
Ugh. If, and I don’t suggest you do this, you were to watch hockey in this country, you’d be familiar with the standard-issue answers that players give when interviewed. Something along the lines of:
Well, we’ve just got to stick to our system, play our own game, make sure we don’t get caught trying to play their game, give 110% and we’ll hopefully [sic] be able to get the win.
Yeurgh.
Also: “operationalize”, and “throughput” are two other corporate nasties that should be dispensed with ASAP. Argh. Ugh.
On a sporting theme you should check out Colemanballs
Some choice examples:
“They didn’t change positions, they just moved the players around.”
Terry Venables
“What disappointed me was that we didn’t play with any passion. I’m not disappointed, you know, I’m just disappointed.”
Kevin Keegan
“If Glenn Hoddle said one word to his team at half-time, it was concentration and focus.”
Ron Atkinson
“There’s Tony Greig standing at second slip — legs wide apart, bending over, waiting for a tickle.”
Brian Johnson
oooh, I like flensing the humpback!
Of course, you could also say scooping the penguin poop (may also be used with chicken poop).
“The batsman’s Holding, the bowler’s Willie”
Classic Johners
@ Craig – please go ahead!
My favourite Colemanball is ‘For those of you watching in black and white, Arsenal is playing in red’.
Trade Union leaders are also famed for their pret-a-porter language as in ‘speaking for myself personally, at the end of the day, the derisory offer of the management does not meet the aspirations of our members’.
- seize the testosterone-crazed guinea pig by the aradicular hypsodont incisors (tackle a difficult problem directly)
- a mouse of a mutated Agouti locus (a novel idea or object)
- something the turkey vulture pulled off the South Texas NAFTA corridor highway (looking bedraggled and worse for wear)
- hypocritical Republican apologetics at a press conference (auditory input that is irritating in the extreme)
- We appreciate all the time and effort you put in on this project (too bad we decided without telling you before you flew across the country needlessly)
- Even a blind squirrel finds a nut (lucky S.O.B.)
- Now making all stops (stuck in committee)
- No (Actually, this simple phrase is not said by people who are supposed to make decisions)
I hate the phrase “let’s get all our ducks in line”. Why would anyone want a line of ducks?
@ Cath – Dinner!
A whole line is just greedy, though ;)
(Reasons why Cath left industry, #132: incomprehension of need for constant corporate growth, especially if at expense of customer and employee satisfaction)
Stop coffee-grounding around and snail-pellet those suckers.
The phrase that has popped up at work a few times recently is “managing expectations”. As in, “If you think we can deliver that product, fully functional and tested, by Tuesday, and all the resources we have are a Java script kiddie and the Complete Works of Shakespeare, we’re going to have to manage your expectations.”
Myself, I’d rather just say “Dream. On.”
“Let’s throw it at the wall and see what sticks.”
Argh.
For new ones, I suggest the idiomatically Canadian
Like a beaver tail slapping in Algonquin (i.e., nobody’s listening)
The Avro Arrow all over again (world-beating project that has been stupidly canned)
I’ve been NAFTA’d (convinced to accept a compromise deal that is to your disadvantage, while others in your organization think it’s wonderful – see here, for example)
pulling a Gilles Villeneuve at Zaandvoort (recklessly continuing on in the face of imminent destruction, all the while thinking you can succeed – see here)
I can probably think of more, but they’ll be even worse than these.
I see your Avro Arrow and raise you a TSR2.
Frequently used here:
And on my BS bingo cards I found the following irritating buzz words:
Raf – I have read through your long list and now feel rather ill. :)
I hope you recover during the weekend:)
The BBC (or someone) recently did a random cliche generator. Quite a few of the above are in there (but not the Wallabies, who were in the Times today, though).
Sorry, I am moving the goalposts.
Silos – they get me, every time.
Maxine has just reminded me somehow that I work in a Convergence Centre that is itself located in a Discovery District.
Sigh.
Craig’s just reminded me of the horror of building naming on my campus. The chemistry building is called Chemicum, the physics and geology building is called Physicum, and mu building (maths and computer science) is called Exactum1. The newest building holds the met. institute, so they called it Dynamicum. There’s also a Talentum in the city centre.
1 This annoyed the physicists, as they didn’t appreciate the implication that they are inexact.
Perhaps too early for this one, but ….
To Michael Jackson a media shitestorm (to avoid a potentially lethal attack through concomitant distraction) Example: SC Governor “Appalachian Trail” Sanford
The consummate practitioner of this art, Kristi, is Godwin Grech. “Who?” you ask. Precisely.
Sanford might be said to have beginner’s luck, then. Ugh.