I had a professor in college who attacked cliches in our written assignments with a red pen and exclamation points. Through their overuse, he felt cliches had lost all meaning.
I have noticed over the years that not only have they lost meaning, but sometimes we use them incorrectly, or we use them without any appreciation of what they were intended to mean.
My favorite example is "I could care less." In today's New York Times, I noticed that Melinda Gates, co-head of the family foundation, said her husband Bill "Couldn't care less" that he had dropped to number two on the list of the world's wealthiest people. Way to go, Melinda - I appreciate her appropriate use of the cliche. And I am sure Bill could not care less if he has a few billion more or less than Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico.
Another misused cliche is "for all intensive purposes." I think the user means to say, "for all intents and purposes," but maybe would be better dropping the phrase altogether.
"You cease to amaze me" is often confused with the phrase "you never seem to amaze me," neither of which contains the wonder of the correct use of the cliche, "You never cease to amaze me." Maybe we would be even more amazed if you "nipped it in the butt." Seems a little intimate to me.
In Friday's Sun-Times, Pat Bruno wrote in response to a reader's question, "The Purple Pig is one of those restaurants you either love or hate. I am somewhere in the middle." Either "Love 'em or Hate 'em" has now entered the cliche hall of fame, or Pat is telling readers that while they must love or hate the restaurant, Pat lays special claim to being in the middle.
Does Pat have an editor? Is anybody reading this copy?
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