I suppose we've discussed clichés before, but a Tribune reader today wrote about his least favorite ones so I thought I'd bring up this discussion again:

•People who make references to the "planet," such as, "This is the best restaurant on the planet."

•Or "my journey." Everyone these days seems to be on some sort of journey without having taken so much as a step.

•And the worst of them all: "at the end of the day." Apparently that is the specific time when truths and revelations are established.

I have a colleague who always says, "I don't have a dog in that fight," so that has become my least favorite cliché.

What are yours?

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People who make references to the "planet," such as, "This is the best restaurant on the planet."

Not only a cliché but also an inaccurate one, since nobody could have tried all the restaurants on the planet.

By the way, isn't the expression "hackneyed clichés" tautological?

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By the way, isn't the expression "hackneyed clichés" tautological?

By definition, yes, I suppose you're right. But even certain clichés can be over-used, don't you think? That's what I think the reader had meant, and it's certainly what I had meant by the one I posted (I don't have a dog in that fight). That particular cliché is used all the time by people at my work.

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I don't have a dog in that fight

When does a phrase become a cliché? have never heard this expression so to me it is new and interesting. All clichés were once new and only become clichés through overuse - but when is use overuse?

Good point, Richard. I looked it up in Google, and it only gets about 3,500 hits, which really isn't enough for a cliché, is it? It seems to be a Texas phrase.

it only gets about 3,500 hits, which really isn't enough for a cliché

I'm sure the sticklers will correct me, but I've always been leery of not being able to qualify any noun I want to with an adjective etc. There are clichés to be sure, but there can be terms that are not quite clichéd as it were, and even clichés unfamiliar to folks, so why not hackneyed clichés, I say?

We are talking about phrases that are clichés. One of my many hates is the indiscriminate and meaningless use of basically. I have many more words that I regard as clichés. I shall spare you the list. But can we extend the term to single words?

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But can we extend the term to single words?

Whatever.

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Originally posted by Richard English:
Whatever.

Another one word cliché?

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Another one word cliché?

Precisely.

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One of my many hates

Aw, you poor baby! All those hates?

One of Jerry's pet peeves is basically, as well.

Classic!

While the Committee for Grammatical Safety is entertaining classes of words for liquidation, I propose we get rid of articles, both definite and indefinite. Many languages (e.g., Latin, Russian, Chinese) do perfectly well without them, and so can we. Basically, the only problem I foresee is the weak-kneed, grammatically inept bemoaning this articular exclusionary policy. Right. It's them up against the usage wall in front of the zero-tolerance firing squad come the Prescriptivist Grammatical Revolution. I shall be forming a grammarian soviet to delete articles from the works of Shakespeare tomorrow. All versions of his work exhibiting articles will be burned on the Place du L. Truss at the beginning of Nivôse.

Today articles! Tomorrow serial commas! Death to the misspelling dogs of ambiguity and illiteration! Re-education for the laxacographers and the ding-a-linguists!

[Edited punctuation mistake to keep out of the semi-colonized pillory. Also, fixed a "spelling" mistake on laxacographers, though to be honest, I like my spelling better.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd, December 12, 2007 11:51

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laxicographers

Dunno whether that was a typo or deliberate. Either way, LOL!

Dunno whether that was a typo or deliberate.

Sorry, but I can't take credit for it. It's a real word which Robert Hartwell Fiske, prescriptivarian, coined. He is the author of a book on English usage, called Depraved English and has a webzine called Vocabula Review. He coined ding-a-linguist, too.

I'm with you, comrade! It's up to us to save the dull, duped proletariat from the evils of illiteracy-promoting dictionaries and boneless lexicographers. Otherwise, civilization will be hastened to its ultimate collapse .

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Originally posted by zmježd:
While the Committee for Grammatical Safety is entertaining classes of words for liquidation......

The process has already started, don't you know? Basically has been banished in Canada. (The only reason I can type it is because the internet is still the unregulated wild west and one can get away with this stuff here.)
It all started with a popular national radio talk show host. He HATED the word. Those interviewed on his morning talk program saw a sign behind the mike...well, it was one of those signs that has a red circle with a diagonal stroke overlaid on a word or a picture...like the Ghostbusters had...is there a name on that thing??...that forbade its use. Consequently, the word fell into disuse before becoming completely extinct. It has been expunged from our dictionaries and soon it will be only us old farts who know about it. Like most things in Canada, this has been done by general consensus without the Committee having to get involved. Gotta go...I got a bridge to sell.

Those were good articles, goofy. The last one mentioned the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar that was started by a Seattle writer, Martha Brockenbrough. I looked it up and joined (for free). You can print a membership card, if you want. It says, at the bottom, "Membership is null and void if bearer uses myself instead of me."

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Originally posted by tinman:
"Membership is null and void if bearer uses myself instead of me."

Unfortunately, "myself" as the object of a verb or a preposition has been in use for 400 years, by writers such as Austin, Byron, EB White, O'Connor, Samuel Johnson, Eliot, and Burchfield. ( page 647) All these instances of "myself" must be deleted in the name of the revolution.

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The company was, Miss Hannah More... Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Burney, Dr. Johnson and myself - James Boswell, Life of Johnson, 1791

...which will reconcile Max Lerner with Felix Frankfurter and myself with God - EB White, letter, 1942

...no one would feel more gratified by the chance of obtaining his observations on a work than myself - Lord Byron, letter, 1811

Like myself, she was vexed at his getting married - Samuel Butler, 1903

So much for my patient - now for myself - Jane Austen, letter, 1798

All these instances of "myself" must be deleted in the name of the revolution.

Right you are, comrade goofy. I've nominated you to the Pronominally Paranoid and Parsimonious Soviet for the Extirpation of Myself [sic]. Oh, goodness, now I have to delete me [non].

[Addendum: And Duncan, I'm promoting you to Grammato-Leader of the Province of Canadia.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd, December 12, 2007 11:53

back to the future:

all hail zmježd, self-appointed tsar (or is it czar) of the Grammatical Comintern!

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It's a real word which Robert Hartwell Fiske, prescriptivarian, coined. He is the author of a book on English usage, called Depraved English

With trepidation I challenge z about this book. Depraved and Insulting English was written by Peter Novobatzky and Ammon Shea (remember, Ammon Shea posted here about my favorite word that all these supposed Wordcraft descriptivists have banished). Is there another book called Depraved English?

I challenge z about this book

Challenge away and you're right. It's called the Dictionary Of Disagreeable English: A Curmudgeon's Compendium of Excruciatingly Correct Grammar. It's so hard to keep all this toxic little books apart. As for the epi-word, we've been over this before K. I've agreed it is a word, I just don't care for it, and it'll never replace the sch-word in my heart and mind. It has as much a right to wordhood as dord does, though I believe they're both mistakes.

Oh, z, I was just being cantankerous, that's all.

I'll at least have to look at the Fiske book. At the very least, I love the name!