Mind your language
13 December 2008
Dot Wordsworth wades through clichés
Clichés gather on the tide and stick on the shingle of daily life like tarred bladder-wrack. A curious species of cliché sets a stereotyped pattern, into which words may be fitted to taste. A particularly annoying example, because it has pretensions to humour, is exemplified by: ‘The words door, horse and bolted spring to mind.’ Or, in an online discussion of US relations with Venezuela that I have just stumbled across, ‘The words pot, kettle and black spring to mind.’ This is a sort of double cliché, because it incorporates in its unvarying mould some already well-worn proverbial remark. I’d be interested in any information about its origins, but I fear they are irrecoverable.
When I mentioned this tiresome form of humour to my husband he went red around the collar (an indication of thought processes within) and came out with a speech formula that he hated. ‘What part of “push off” don’t you understand?’
This piece of clichéd syntax has at least a short history. An American country singer, Lorrie Morgan, had something of a success in 1992 with an album called Watch Me, featuring a song ‘What part of No’. It is about a woman who repels a man’s romantic advances.
I appreciate the drink and the rose was nice
of you.
I don’t mean to be so bleak, I don’t think I’m
getting’ through.
I don’t need no company, and I don’t want
to dance.
What part of ‘No’ don’t you understand?
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Joe Camel
December 11th, 2008 6:07pm Report this commentAn online formula I find entertaining, perhaps because I haven't yet seen it all that often, is three words with a full stop after each, the first word being an allusion to your adversary's post:
[Blank]. Deckchairs. Titanic.
Harry Duckworth
December 12th, 2008 9:32am Report this commentAkin to "What's not to like?" is this, common in New Zealand now: "How good is that!" I blame the advertising industry for such irritations.
David Moss
December 14th, 2008 10:21am Report this commentCAN I GET ...
Time was, when the waiter approached your table, you were expected to say something like "I'll have the saveloys, with extra piccalilli, please".
Now it's "can I get the saveloys ...".
Why?
Tony Percy
January 4th, 2009 10:36pm Report this commentDot Wordsworth would probably enjoy a poem titled 'O, My God!' that appears in Billy Collins's latest work, 'Ballistics'.
Not only in church
and nightly by their bedsides
do young girls pray these days.
Wherever they go,
prayer is woven into their talk
like a bright thread of awe.
Even at the pedestrian mall
outbursts of praise
spring unbidden from their glossy lips.
(reproduced without permission in the hope that more people will buy the book.)
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