In this day and age, should we avoid platitudes like the plague or embrace them fully?
Don’t we all love to hate a well-worn cliché? There’s even a slight feeling of Schadenfreude when we see a favourite author tripping up on them. It’s almost as if we’re being assured that if best-selling writers can fall through the cracks, so can we.
A cliché is usually defined as a phrase or expression that’s seen better days. Therefore, it’s advisable to keep it in check. Writers are divided on their usefulness or lack thereof. For the late Terry Pratchett these conveyors of common thoughts or ideas were “hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication”. For the philosopher Alain de Botton, clichés are detrimental “because they are superficial calculations of very good ones (ideas). The sun is often on fire at sunset and the moon discreet, but if we keep saying this every time we encounter the sun or a moon, we will end up believing that this is the last rather than the first word to be said on the subject”.
To all of which I say: yup, I get it. As a reader, I, too, like creative storytelling.
And yet…
For a non-native, English-speaking writer clichés can be a godsend. Part of it is to do with how we learn the language and the tools we use in the process.
Our first clumsy steps in English are too insufficient to even think of formulating coherent sentences. Whilst learners’ approaches differ, if your motivation to learn the English language is intrinsic (i.e., you want something more than just to communicate), you will stretch yourself.
This is where clichés come in handy. First off, we fail to see their ubiquity in the language, therefore overlooking their poor reputation amongst the cognoscenti. But we gravitate towards them like moths to a flame. They anchor us in the language we’ve chosen and which is beginning to make sense now. Yes, I know. How many times can we use expressions such as “let’s get to the bottom of this”, “at the end of the day” and “put it in the back of the net/hit it out of the park (I’m partial to both football and baseball)” without sounding like an uninspiring broken record?
Clichés give us time to process ideas. This is almost like landings when we’re going upstairs. We rest and gear ourselves up to carry on. On Medium this translates as a story-aid tool. For those of us who churn three or four (sometimes even five) articles per week, it’s important to understand when a post needs a few more minutes or hours of work, and when it’s ready to be published, platitudes notwithstanding.
Lastly, clichés enable us to think in English. This is perhaps the most important development in the making of the non-native, English-speaking writer. At least for me, translation while writing in English is a no-no. Having access to a bank of overused and hackneyed phrases might seem like the lazy way out, but it pays off in the long term, because…
With the passing of time, we realise what clichés are and how they stop us from exploring and exploiting our creativity. By then we will have become more confident and adventurous in our writing. We’ve used the “hammers and screwdrivers” to carve our own space in the English language. We might even come up with different ways to describe a sunset.
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