Concepts

Cliches are like assholes, everyone thinks theirs has a silver lining, but
they’re really just full of shit.

A while back while in a writing improvement phase a friend of mine gave me
some excellent advice. Stop using clichés.

The reason clichés are undesired is because they don’t stimulate people the
same way “regular language” does. I initially argued that clichés became so
used precisely because they were so succinct and accurate, and that they
were therefore useful tools.

His response was that they used to be good tools — the first few
times they were used. But after the phrases are processed over and over by
someone they cease to have any meaning. They become hollow. All the genius
is sucked out of the saying by sheer repetition.

Dead Receptors

Think of your brain as a patch of fresh green grass, with the individual
blades serving as sensors for new ideas. Each time the grass is tweaked by
someone walking by or sitting in it, new connections are built in your
brain. Now imagine that a tank rolls through (a very powerful image or
idea). The blades lay down from the weight of the idea, which stimulates the
emotions and spawns mental connections within the listener. The tank passes
and the grass stands back up.

Well, clichés are like tanks that parked in your pasture. All the grass
under the tank is dead. And when the tank comes again later to park in its
familiar space, there are no longer any grass blades to tweak. As a result,
there is no impact to the listener. It’s like it never happened. The
connection fails.

Be Fresh

So the solution is simple — say it another way. Instead of saying, “Every
cloud has a silver lining.”, say “Most great things in life come from facing
hard times.” Is it sexy? No. But it’s new. It’s something that
requires mental processing.

That’s the key: the idea is to make the listener actively process what
you’re saying and build new mental connections from your words. This can’t
happen if your words aren’t even considered. Clichés are taken as dead
chunks of nothingness, not as language. They aren’t even parsed for meaning;
they are ignored.

If you want to be a successful communicator, don’t use them.