Say it Again and Again...

The time is ripe for more cliches. Thanks again to James Rogers, author of The Dictionary of Cliches (Ballantine Books). The research for this book is exhaustive. Rogers lays out the meaning, etymology, and then where it was first used (it's usually in a piece of literature).

Photo courtesy of Pexels

"Grasp at straws. Act in desperation (probably from the image of a drowning person clutching at anything that floats, even something so insubstantial as straws). [also catch at straws]. Rogers traces it back to 1748 in the novel Clarissa: "A drowning man will catch at a straw...."

Bury the hatchet. Rogers claims there is a dispute between a 14th century English usage of 'hang up the hatchet' which means to stop fighting, but 'bury' the hatchet appears to derive from Native Americans whose ceremony of burying two hatchets was a more binding peace agreement than any papers presented by the government.

Bag of bones. This saying seems to come from Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist as poor Oliver, practically starved, is told, "There, get down stairs, little bag o' bones."

A-OK. Americans can claim the creation of this phrase, which was first used by NASA spokesman James A. Powers in 1961 during the great space race. It meant the mission was going well and became a popular saying.

A no-win situation. In 1962, against the backdrop of the Cold War, this American saying is attributed to "war game activity... "there are plenty of 'no-win situations'" in war games and in real wars."

There are so many wonderful cliches! I encourage you to check out this book. (You might want to review your manuscript to see if you've used a few...)

Till next week!

Char

Time to Rise and Shine!

Even when we know we shouldn't, we use cliches. They are comfortable. Familiar. Everyone knows what you mean when you use them.

But cliches are worn out. They are the tool of a lazy or unimaginative writer or speaker.
The thing is, there are soooo many cliches that it's not easy coming up with colorful alternatives. There are over 2,000. Yep. There's a whole book devoted to them, written by James Roberts, The Dictionary of Cliches. Some we all know, like 'hard as nails' or 'puppy love.' Some are so dated, that few readers today without a gray hair know them, like, 'you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear' or 'too many irons in the fire.' Some I hadn't heard of, like 'thin edge of the wedge.' ? What does that even mean? According to Roberts, it means:

     The beginning of a venture that is expected to expand; the leading edge of a program or activity. This "wedge" is the metal one, about six inches long, employed to split logs. Once you get the leading edge started, you have a good chance of splitting the wood (unless it is unseasoned or has the kind of grain that does not split readily). Anthony Trollope had the image in Doctor Thorne (1858), both as a chapter heading (The Small End of the Wedge) and as a description of a ploy by a woman against the doctor (there Trollope wrote "the little edge"). In 1884 The Graphic offered: "Cremation advocates have managed to get in the thin edge of the wedge in France."

Okay, I have little knowledge about splitting logs so I never would have guessed this.

Another one is 'go around Robin Hood's barn.' Take (often unnecessarily) a circuitous route; proceed by indirection. Robin Hood, a perhaps legendary figure, has represented since the 14th century the free spirit who robs the rich to pay the poor. He had no barn, since all his activities were outdoors, and so to go around Robin Hood's barn is a labored effort. The phrase is more recent than the legend, having first turned up in print in J. F. Kelley's Humors of Falconbridge (1854): "The way some folks have of going round 'Robin Hood's barn' to come at a thing.

Makes sense. And this is kind of fun. So every once in a while, I'll pull out the more obscure or ancient ones. (I'm wondering too, if they are so outdated no one remembers them, are they still cliches?)

Till then, we'll let sleeping dogs lie...

Photo by Christian Domingues from Pexels

Char