cliche vs slightly cliched

Grocery lists. Phone numbers. Notes in class. Small arguments. Embarrassing love notes. All that.

Who was there?

Also, slips of paper, train tickets, backs torn off of greeting cards, receipts for some other purchase....

signs of life I guess.

Agree more than a tad with William & others & appreciate the thread. I've recently tossed a well-worn phrase (cited as cliché) over a metaphor salad & had it sent back to the kitchen, but that just made me work a little harder to turn the phrase - although I almost dismissed the critter who failed to use the accent mark (cliché).

I'd also like to agree with the idea that a cliché can be opportune & well-placed, or even humorous, when used with a light hand. For example, I was mulling some lyrics about my trusty automobile and I thought about saying that she'd "been around the block" with albeit a more literal sense than the actual phrase. Anyhow- just thought I'd chime in. Ding.

I often point out cliches. I believe it is valuable for the author to know because cliches are tools and should be used with intention. Pointing it out allows for that intention which may or may not have been there all along. I do try to elaborate on what exactly makes the phrase or entire piece cliche.

I may even be one of those people who says slightly cliche. That may mean you've twisted the cliche but not far enough for me. It also may mean I've seen something similar a few times, but I'm not sure it's reached the point of qualifying as a full blown cliche. Cliches develop over time after all. Sometimes it is just a feeling of familiarity, like I've seen that piece before even though there's no way I could have. Again, I try to elaborate.

Also, none of these is necessarily bad. It's about giving the author tools to make decisions with intention.

How do you do accent marks on here? I know how to get them in Word but not here.

Magdalen said:

although I almost dismissed the critter who failed to use the accent mark (cliché).

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I admit I'm guilty of this. I haven't yet figured out how to put an accent mark into my posts in a way that isn't a cumbersome cut-and-paste-from-Word pain in the ass, and I usually can't be bothered unless I'm concerned someone might mistake my meaning if I don't use it.

zanzjan said:

I dunno. I was taking a heavy math class in college that was kicking my ass, and one day I flipped open my (used) textbook to the next chapter and discovered the previous owner (who had been largely absent up until that point) had scrawled in large letters across the top of the page: "That is your hand, Buckaroo!"

Weirdly, the class seemed easier after that.

What some other reader writes in a book is a window; it may not be one worth peering out, or it might. But I find it useful not the begrudge opportunities

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I'm also reminded of Fermat's Last Theorem, if we are going down the mathematics trail for a moment.

Clichés themselves, it would seem, are well understood. Then there's the second part of the question: can you refer to an entire poem, or a passage, as cliché? Does that make sense, and is it helpful?

CassandraW said:

I admit I'm guilty of this. I haven't yet figured out how to put an accent mark into my posts in a way that isn't a cumbersome cut-and-paste-from-Word pain in the ass, and I usually can't be bothered unless I'm concerned someone might mistake my meaning if I don't use it.

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In Windows, at least on my laptop, it's Alt-Fn-0233 (not the standard number keys; some keys have other values when you hold down the Fn key; on my laptop, those values are shown in blue on the key)

poetinahat said:

In Windows, at least on my laptop, it's Alt-Fn-0233 (not the standard number keys; some keys have other values when you hold down the Fn key; on my laptop, those values are shown in blue on the key)

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Thank you. Alas, my keyboard is apparently not as fancy as yours. I'll have to play with it. For now, the best I can do is type the word correctly in Microsoft Word, and then cut and paste it here. I'm usually much too lazy for that. It's all I can do to press my shift key. And I only use that to annoy Haskins.

É for me is where my question mark is supposed to be. I use the Canadian Multilingual Keyboard setting. Not really useful for Canadian French because the diacritics are all in funny spots.

I responded to the latest Poetry Prompt not thinking about this thread, but in light of it, I expanded my efforts. It's not that good a poem, but it illustrates the use of cliche:

(revised version)

They Say

Play the hand you're dealt.
This hand?
Callused, stained,
thumbing a scar? Or
the one that clutches a steel bar.
I'm lucky I won a corner spot.
This cage is small.
There's no lying down
except in shifts.
We keep our hands
to ourselves.

Brighten the corner where you are.
That was in a church song.
My back rubs the bars, my butt
polishes the bare floor.
There's your brightening.
The sun hurts
and there's no place to hide.
Darkening my corner
is what I want,
but I have to watch for gleaming
bright eyes in the night.

Bloom where you're planted.
Once I'm planted I'll bloom.
Let me get there,
into some cool deep dirt
where I can spread out
where all this
will stop. Then, sure,
I'll bloom.
Send up a flower
before that, you say?
Ha. Say that to my face.
Make my day.

Then again, is a homily a type of cliche?