‘At the end of the day’ is, according to popular vote, our most disliked cliché. Clichés are defined as hackneyed or overused phrases. As a book on usage puts it: language reflects thought. It even, to a large extent, controls thought. So, tired, unimaginative words suggest tired, unimaginative thoughts. Most of us are pretty tired by the end of the day — in both senses. Whenever I hear the phrase, I transform it to ‘at the beginning of the night’.
Managers use clichés. Sadly, some managers seem to believe they inject life into their documents. But clichés deaden. Sometimes it's not easy to distinguish a cliché from a stock phrase, which is a phrase having little or no actual meaning of its own, but having meaning only through custom or context. Mostly, stock phrases are spoken — ‘Have a nice day’ — although not necessarily, and are often just symbols of politeness: we end our letters ‘yours faithfully’ or ‘yours sincerely’, when we might have little faith and even less sincerity. So stock phrases merge with euphemism: ‘I hear what you're saying …’, which means precisely the opposite.
And what about proverbs? By their nature they are clichés: short pithy sayings that state a general truth are bound to be much used. What better way of illustrating the wisdom of giving people the means to look after themselves than ‘Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for life’. But that excellent sentiment languishes on a cliché-finder website along with ‘first saw the light of day’ and ‘bad hair day’.
As an editor, I would expunge ‘first saw the light of day’. I think ‘bad hair day’ works as well as ‘heartsink patient’, although is less formal. ‘Give a man a fish …’. with dots representing the rest of the proverb, is all that is needed and, in that form, in the right context, may be a cliché, but is not tired and unimaginative.
Medical journals contain plenty of phrases weary enough to be clichés. The Lancet railed against the conclusion that ‘Further studies are needed …’, because they always are. But even the Lancet is guilty, in a recent picture caption, of using the tired old cliché that is trotted out every time anyone writes about stem cells. In the media as well as in medical journals, no one can mention stem cells without mentioning diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease. Such mention means ‘Have large grant to maintain’.
- © British Journal of General Practice, 2004.
