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Are clichés just lazy writing?

Intense debate about clichés arose over Why Cutting Clichés From Your Copy is as Easy as Pie by Mohsin Naqi on Copyblogger

Clichés are common phrases, like:

• Easy as pie.
• As common as dirt.
• Pure as the driven snow.
• The best thing since sliced bread.
• Been there, done that.

Do clichés work like cultural shorthand?

Cited in Copyblogger, among other arguments, was “Creative Confessions Clichéd Confessions” published a year ago in The Country Register. Maggie Milne Chicoine notes the generational disconnect for an old cliché like “a stitch in time saves nine.” Time has eroded its familiarity. It no longer serves its shorthand purpose.

Generally, Avoid clichés. Using clichés has clear risk. Roy H. Williams, the Wizard of Ads, writes about Broca’s area of the brain as a strong filter blocking the familiar from getting our conscious attention. States Williams:

“First it was Dr. Burkhardt Maess of the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience who proved my longstanding assertion that Broca’s area of the brain anticipates the predictable. (This is important to you and me because Predictability is the killer of attention. If we want to gain and hold human attention, we must know how to stimulate Broca.) “

Our mind shifts quickly from the familiar to the predictable to the off button. If a cliché triggers the off button on the remote in Broca’s control, we’ve gained nothing by our verbal shorthand. Most often, Using clichés is just lazy writing.

Jack

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