Let's hear it for the cliché

Abstract

Print journalism is littered with clichés, but is it necessary always to avoid them like the plague? No, says the defender of clichédom

The author of The Cat’s Pyjamas: The Penguin Book of Clichés argues that clichés can be good for you: while clichés may be poor style they are efficient forms of communication. That is why they become clichés. As Terry Pratchett puts it in Guards! Guards!, “Clichés are the spanners and the screwdrivers in the toolbox of language.” Take a really crude example of journalese, such as a headline, “Tiny tot in tug of love”. We may deplore the style, but there is no denying that readers know exactly what they are getting, and are instantly in a position to know if they want to go on reading. And she continues: clichés are both contextual and subjective. If you put the expression “run for your life” in a television drama, it is likely to be a cliché. If you are on a beach and see a tsunami sweeping towards you it is exactly what you need to yell. It would get the legs moving without any need for thought or analysis.