The Current Crop of Clichés

Elizabeth Zelvin

I wish I could say that every writer knows how important it is to keep his or her language fresh. In theory, none of them would deny it. Yet all too often, I find myself reading the same tired old phrases and misapplied words. Leafing through a recent read, I found “a knee-jerk reaction,” “a vibrant industry,” “the spitting image,” “short and sweet,” “like he’d seen a ghost.” It’s one thing to use such expressions in dialogue, another in narrative. But that is not actually my beef today. I would like to complain about the fact that in addition to the old clichés, we now have an abundance of new clichés to guard against. Where did they come from? How did they spread so fast? And why, oh why do so many writers insist on using them?

When, for example, did “night and day” (or “day and night”) become “24/7”? When did “back in the old days” or “way back when” become “back in the day”? How did a simple “never” turn into a facetious “not anytime soon”? Actually, that one charmed me the first time I saw it, in Rosemary Harris’s first mystery. When her wisecracking suburban protagonist meets a hostile and suspicious female police detective, she says, “We were not going shopping together anytime soon.” But all too soon, I saw the same expression everywhere. Note to self: if “anytime soon” (or “back in the day” or “24/7”) should inadvertently trickle from your fingertips, delete asap!

I know where “thirtysomething” (and its derivatives, “twentysomething” and “fortysomething,” if not “fiftysomething”) came from: it was the title of a TV series that debuted in 1987. The term entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1993, where it was qualified as “specifically applied to members of the ‘baby boom’ generation entering their thirties in the mid-1980s; also attributed as an adjective phrase (hence, characteristic of the tastes and lifestyle of this group).” But the baby boomers are now “the new thirty,” ie in their sixties, and I’ve seen manuscript after manuscript in which “thirtysomething” appears simply to denote a character in his or her thirties. Published books, “not so much”—another overused phrase that has emerged in the last couple of years.

Have you read advertising copy for clothing lately? When did “pants” or “pair of pants” become “pant”? Men can buy “The North Face Men’s Outbound Pant” at Zappo’s—for one-legged mountain climbers, no doubt. “The Polo Ralph Lauren Hudson “Preston” Pant” at Bloomingdale’s—for one-legged polo players, maybe? On the other hand, at Eastern Mountain Sports, some of whose customers really are going climbing, they can still find “North Face Men’s Outbound Pants.” My one consolation with this one is that, as far as I know, nobody but advertisers and maybe retailers is using “pant” as a noun.

The most recent shift in usage that I’ve noticed, this one more in the spoken than the written word, is “iconic” for a variety of perfectly good adjectives with a number of different meanings: “classic,” “typical,” “best known,” “original,” and “household word.” Where did that one come from? You will probably be able to visualize the item I have in mind, whether I say “an iconic Coke bottle” or “a wasp-waisted Coke bottle”—but one is neo-cliché, while the other, I hope, is prose.

Screeching to a Halt on a Manicured Lawn

Sandra Parshall

There it was, in the middle of a beautifully-written book I'd been enjoying.

The hero hears a noise on the floor above and starts up the steps to investigate. Something slams into him, he feels a blinding pain... "then all was blackness." That means he was knocked out. Loss of consciousness is a fairly common occurrence in crime novels because it's so useful. It always creates a sense of urgency and danger — when the main character is clobbered, the reader knows the situation is heating up and more excitement is on the way. It also removes the protagonist from the action long enough for the villain, now unhampered, to do something dastardly in the background. If you read a lot of crime novels, you're likely to see a lot of characters getting knocked out. The descriptions will be remarkably similar. "...then all was blackness." "...then everything went black." "...then the world went black." I suffered a concussion once, and that was exactly what happened: everything went black. But I've read the description so many times that I grind my teeth when I come across it in yet another mystery or thriller.

Like most readers, I have my personal list of pet peeves, and that's just one of them. I also groan every time I spot the phrase manicured lawn. I picture a salon manicurist on her hands and knees, clipping the grass with those tiny cuticle scissors. Manicured lawn has become the most common shortcut phrase for telling the reader that a landscape is well-maintained. Even Webster's lists it: "[Colloq.] to trim, clip, etc., meticulously [to manicure a lawn]." But I don't think it makes sense. For me it's another teeth-grinder.

Speaking of landscapes, what about all those tree-lined streets? If the writer wants us to know that a character inhabits a placid, pleasant neighborhood, he mentions the tree-lined streets. But how many residential neighborhoods don't have trees on the streets? Some of the worst slums I've ever seen had tree-lined streets. The phrase creates a vague image in my mind because it tells me nothing new. The writer hasn't given me a single striking detail that would make the setting specific and memorable.

Now let's talk about the manner in which a vehicle ceases motion in an emergency. It screeches to a halt, of course. Or, for variety, it screeches to a stop. Once when I was proofreading a manuscript of my own, I stumbled onto this and had a strong urge to bang my head on my desk until all was blackness. They're insidious, these cliched descriptions. Let your guard down for a second and they march right in and make themselves comfortable. All too often, though, writers deliberately usher them onto the page. We need a quick way to convey an idea, so we reach into our handy Bag of Cliches and come up with a manicured lawn or a tree-lined street, and we continue without a second thought. I'm not claiming the high ground here, because I'm as guilty of lazy writing as anyone else.

Also abundant in fiction are situational cliches, those scenes where coincidences crop up or characters do absurd things because it's easiest for us to write them that way. (The unarmed hero or heroine who goes upstairs or downstairs alone to investigate a weird noise is a prime example, so the writer who prompted this rant committed two sins, not one.) Too much of that stuff in an unpublished manuscript will deaden a story and doom its chances of selling. Too much of it in an established writer's work can turn off the most ardent fans and leave them feeling cheated.

I can easily see all these flaws in other people's writing. I can't always spot them right away in my own. But I have vowed to be more vigilant. From now on, I'll give every chapter, every scene, one reading that will focus on cliches and lazy descriptions. I might not get rid of your pet peeves, but I can make sure the things I hate are rooted out. It's a start.

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All the Deadly Daughters are amazed and delighted to find our site on a list of "Eight Top Mystery Blogs" in the April 15 issue of Library Journal. It's nice to be noticed!