Throw Out the Cliche - Part 1

Articles In This Section:

· Throw Out the Cliche - Part 1

· Throw Out the Cliche - Part 2

· Throw Out the Cliche - Part 3

· Throw Out the Cliche - Part 4

· Throw Out the Cliche - Part 5

· Throw Out the Cliche - Part 6

· Throw Out the Cliche - Part 7

· Throw Out the Cliche - Part 8

· Throw Out the Cliche - Part 9

Now let's go after the deadest of deadwood—the cliche. Check your script for those trite phrases, those hackneyed expressions, those stereotyped blurbs that roll off the tongue of most speakers with the greatest of ease. With a snap, too, as if they had the tang of the olive out of the martini—or the onion if you prefer. Speech-makers love them. Put your shoulder to the wheel—plan your work and work your plan—every soldier a potential general— loyal, enthusiastic, whole-hearted cooperation—analyze, organize, deputize. . . .

These are the ones. Speeches are full of them. Let's wrap all of them in heavy paper, tie the bundle securely, and throw it in the ash can. Why? You say you like them, and you feel the audience does too. Look, let's be sensible. You are a fat man, and in this speech you have written, "Like the proverbial stitch in time. . . ." Now that is brilliant, but the audience will know that if you had taken a stitch in time you would be wearing a smaller vest. Any one of those tired expressions can sound just as ridiculous. Perhaps you want to use the idea, but say it in your own words.

There are other kinds of material that you should look for in this check. Here are a few:

1. The old stand-bys—the proverbs, the mottoes, the ones that everybody knows

2. The sad expressions that are a part of your business (Business talks are full of them.)

3. The stilted, the out-of-date, the expressions left to us by our grandfathers

4. The popular that has outlived its popularity

5. The clever lines that the audience will sense you did not originate

6. The pep lines that are designed to send the boys out to do or die for dear old whatever, the lines that usually give them a pain.

These are some types of material that should be cut. There are others, of course, but the ones I mention here will send you on a quest for all similar ones you may have in your original writing.