Graeden R Horsell, November 1997
Most of what Ms. English told me went in one ear and out the other. I could get away with an occasional split infinitive or dangling participle, but cliches were Ms. English’s last straw. When it came to cliches, we had to be letter perfect. She had a motto of live and learn, but Ms. English’s intense dislike of cliches made her motto seem more like learn or die.
She said that what separates the men from the boys is that real men don’t use cliches. Just like that, it was an open-and-shut case. I was young; I couldn’t have cared less. You know, boys will be boys, free and easy, sort of a captain of your own soul type thing. Silently, I’d say to myself: “heavens to Betsy Ms. English, you don’t have to get your nose out of joint every time I use a cliche.” But, if I didn’t get all my cliches out of my essays there was hell to pay. Ms. English and I always seemed to be at loggerheads. Imagine, she accused me of having a chip on my shoulder.
One subtle cliche and Ms. English would blow her stack, give me the evil eye, and chew me out. I paid through the nose for trying to get some subtle cliches past her. The bottom line, she told me, is that cliches make writing pedestrian and if I wanted to rise to become the cream of the crop as a writer of speeches, I must drop my cliches. “Deep six the cliches”, she would yell. I’d yell back: “with all due respect, Ms. English, that’s a cliche and you should practice what you preach.” She’d yell back, “Do as I say, not as I do!” Fine for her to say. For her, it was all in a day’s work. But, for me, old customs died hard and it often left me in a blue funk. It seemed like I was always behind the 8-ball. You can bet I was in Ms. English’s little black book-often.
One day I had a change in heart. I decided I didn’t want to be a good-for-nothing. I decided it was do or die and that I would put my shoulder to the wheel and leave no stone unturned in my quest to find cliches and eliminate them. Many nights I burned the midnight oil, and, for a while, I made progress by leaps and bounds. But cliches were here, there, everywhere. The cliche became the proverbial albatross around my neck. I was as busy as a cat on a hot tin roof with my red marking pencil. Many a time, after I wrote a fine piece, I found myself down and out because I would find one small cliche and then it was back to the drawing board and sometimes back to square one.
Be that as it may, I tried to be of good cheer. Time and again I would break out my eraser for battle royal with the offending cliche. Come hell or high water, I had decided every cliche must go. Believe it or not, by brute force, an eagle eye, the sweat from my brow, and by burning the candle at both ends, I was able to ferret out all cliches for a short time. I was on cloud nine.
Then something happened. I found a cliche, tried to replace it, and I drew a blank. I racked my brain and sweat blood, gallons of it. It didn’t help. It was hope against hope. I tried to grind it out and I all I did was grind to a halt. If you are new to writing speeches, you’ll find that eliminating a cliche is sometimes easier said than done. It’s certainly not child’s play. Replacing it, well, you’d better have a month of Sundays.
It finally dawned on me that I knew, from the bottom of my heart, I couldn’t cut the mustard or toe the line when it came to eliminating cliches. Sadder but wiser, I decided to bite the bullet before I bit the dust. I went full circle on the cliché thing. I figured out there was not a ghost of a chance that I could get by without cliches. When you can’t think of the right words, well, all I can say is: beggars can’t be choosers.
Sometimes a good cliche is the staff of life and sometimes using a cliche is as right as rain. If the shoe fits, wear it. If you are in a pickle and a cliche will get you out of it, in a word, use it. I still don’t recommend using cliches across the board. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. But I sure hope Ms. English teacher will some day come down from her ivory tower, see the handwriting on the wall and faces the music. Ms. English, sometimes, even if it’s only once in a blue moon, you can’t and shouldn’t avoid all cliches.
The “the eliminate all cliches” rule is much ado about nothing. With all due respect, Ms. English, let me bend your ear: you’d better change your view or mark my words, some day you’ll eat your words. Maybe you’ll even get hoisted by your own petard. (Something seems wrong with that last sentence, but that’s beside the point; you can’t win them all.) There, I’ve said it, the moment of truth has come. As for me, you can bet your boots or your bottom dollar that I use cliches to my heart’s content. The long and short of it is that often cliches are my ace in the hole. I know, I know, for some people hope springs eternal, but when it comes to avoiding cliches the only thing I can say is abandon hope, all ye who enter here. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Ms. English.
Oh, for crying out loud, I can’t do it. I can’t end on a sour note and cast aspersions on the character of Ms. English. She was stubborn as a mule and she always stuck to her guns, but she was also an honest to goodness grey eminence. Hmmm, now that’s food for thought. Or perhaps it’s just a backhanded compliment. Who knows? Whoa, that sounds dangerously close to a cliche. I’d better check it out. Well, that’s the story of Ms. English and me. As for the cliche, I have only one rule: never say never.