Cliché

"Our Three-Volume Novel at a Glance", a cartoon by Priestman Atkinson, from the Punch Almanack for 1885 (which would have been published in late 1884), a jocular look at some clichéd expressions in the popular literature of the time

A cliché or cliche (/ˈkliːʃeɪ/ or /klɪˈʃeɪ/) is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.[1]

In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning, referring to an expression imposed by conventionalized linguistic usage. The term is frequently used in modern culture for an action or idea that is expected or predictable, based on a prior event. Typically pejorative, "clichés" may or may not be true.[2] Some are stereotypes, but some are simply truisms and facts.[3] Clichés often are employed for comic effect, typically in fiction.

Most phrases now considered clichéd originally were regarded as striking, but have lost their force through overuse.[4] The French poet Gérard de Nerval once said, "The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile."[5]

A cliché is often a vivid depiction of an abstraction that relies upon analogy or exaggeration for effect, often drawn from everyday experience.[6][7] Used sparingly, it may succeed, but the use of a cliché in writing, speech, or argument is generally considered a mark of inexperience or a lack of originality.

Origin

The word cliché is drawn from the French language. In printing, "cliché" came to mean a stereotype, electrotype or cast plate or block reproducing words or images that would be used repeatedly;[8] the word seems to have derived from the clicking sound made when blocks were polytyped (a particular form of stereotyping in which the block was impressed into a bath of molten type-metal to form a matrix).[9] Through this onomatopoeia, "cliché" came to mean a ready-made, oft-repeated phrase.

Usage

Using a feature such as an overhanging branch to frame a nature scene[10] may be described as a visual cliché even though it also supplies scale.

Various dictionaries recognize a derived adjective clichéd, with the same meaning.[11][12][13][14] Cliché is sometimes used as an adjective,[12][13] although some dictionaries do not recognize it as such,[11][14] listing the word only as a noun and clichéd as the adjective.

Thought-terminating cliché

Thought-terminating clichés, also known as thought-stoppers,[15] are words or phrases that discourage critical thought and meaningful discussion about a given topic.[16] They are typically short, generic truisms that offer seemingly simple answers to complex questions or that distract attention away from other lines of thought.[16] They are often sayings that have been embedded in a culture's folk wisdom and are tempting to say because they often sound true or good or like the right thing to say.[15] Some examples are: "Stop thinking so much",[17] "here we go again",[18] and "what effect do my actions have?"[15]

The term was popularized by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton in his 1961 book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China.[16] Lifton wrote, "The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis".[19] Sometimes they are used in a deliberate attempt to shut down debate, manipulate others to think a certain way, or dismiss dissent. However, some people repeat them, even to themselves, out of habit, conditioning or as a defense mechanism.[15][20]

Examples in literature

In George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), a totalitarian government has implemented Newspeak, a controlled version of English, in an attempt to limit their citizens' capacity for independent thought and therefore hamper opposition. Words for "dangerous" concepts, such as "freedom", have been eliminated from the lexicon and the remaining words are ideologically-loaded, thought-terminating clichés.[16]

In her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt described the Nazi Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann as an intelligent man who used clichés and platitudes to justify his actions and the role he played in the Jewish genocide during World War II. For Arendt, these phrases are symptomatic of an absence of thought, writing that "When confronted with situations for which such routine procedures did not exist, he [Eichmann] was helpless, and his cliché-ridden language produced on the stand, as it had evidently done in his official life, a kind of macabre comedy. Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence."[21]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Gary Blake and Robert W. Bly, The Elements of Technical Writing, pg. 85. New York: Macmillan Publishers, 1993. ISBN 0020130856
  2. ↑ Short Story Library Thick skin and writing, cliché, but true Archived 2010-02-26 at the Wayback Machine. - Published By Casey Quinn • May 10th, 2009 • Category: Casey's Corner
  3. ↑ The Free Dictionary - Cliche
  4. ↑ Mason, David; Nims, John Frederick (1999). Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry. McGraw-Hill. pp. 126–127. ISBN 0-07-303180-1.
  5. ↑ Biography and Quotations of Gérard de Nerval
  6. ↑ Loewen, Nancy (2011). Talking Turkey and Other Clichés We Say. Capstone. p. 11. ISBN 1404862722.
  7. ↑ "Definition of Cliché". Retrieved 3 January 2014.
  8. ↑ Westwood, Alison. The Little Book of Clichés. Canary Press eBooks. ISBN 1907795138.
  9. ↑ http://typefoundry.blogspot.co.uk/2006_01_01_archive.html
  10. ↑ Freeman, Michael (2004). Nature and Landscape Photography. Lark Books. p. 36. ISBN 1-57990-545-5. Retrieved 2009-07-02.
  11. 1 2 "cliche". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. n.d. Archived from the original on 2005-01-09. Retrieved 2010-10-21.
  12. 1 2 "cliché". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
  13. 1 2 "cliché". Dictionary.com Unabridged. n.d. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
  14. 1 2 Brown, Lesley, editor (1993). "cliché". New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-861271-0.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Chiras, Daniel D. (1992), "Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in the Biology & Environmental Science Classrooms", The American Biology Teacher, 54 (8): 464–468, doi:10.2307/4449551
  16. 1 2 3 4 Kathleen Taylor (27 July 2006). Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control. OUP Oxford. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-19-920478-6.
  17. ↑ Morisy, Ann (2009), Bothered and Bewildered: Enacting Hope in Troubled Times, A&C Black, p. 29, ISBN 9781847064806, retrieved October 25, 2016
  18. ↑ Clampitt, Phillip G.; Williams, M. Lee (Winter 2007), "Decision Downloading", MIT Sloan Management Review, vol. 48 no. 2, retrieved October 25, 2016
  19. ↑ Lifton, Robert J. (1989). Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China. UNC Press. p. 429. ISBN 978-0-8078-4253-9.
  20. ↑ Peterson, Britt (March 19, 2015), "Scientology’s enturbulating lingo", Boston Globe, retrieved October 25, 2016
  21. ↑ Arendt, Hannah (1978). Mary McCarthy, ed. Thinking. The Life of the Mind. I. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 4. ISBN 978-0151518951.

Further reading

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