Pardon me if I seem to be in a “pet peeves” mode today. You
know how sometimes you notice one little detail, and suddenly you see it
everywhere? Well, lately I’ve noticed an overuse of two clichés, the literary equivalent
of ear-worms, so I’m on a de-worming campaign.
A cliché starts as an original expression, but devolves
through misuse and overuse into meaningless verbiage. One I can’t get out of my
head is “turn on one’s heel.” The original use appears to have been an attempt
to show how a character can spin around, usually in anger or disgust. My
problem with the phrase is not only overuse, although that’s bad enough. What
gets to me is that the action described is nearly impossible to do. The angles
of our knees and ankles and the balance of our muscles are all wrong for this
motion. Seriously, have you ever tried turning on your heel? I dare you to do
it without landing on your derriere. Go ahead, try it. I’ll wait… See? If you
want to change direction quickly and emphatically, you pivot on your toes. The only person I’ve ever seen
turn on his heel was an actor, playing an alien disguised as a human. The effect
was truly eerie and, well, alien.
The other worm in my ear, though more ubiquitous, could be considered less obnoxious
because it takes many forms:
I forced my way
through the crowd.
He picked his way over
the stones.
She edited her way
through a manuscript.
They ate their way
through the meal.
We swam our way across
the river.
All these sentences indicate movement against resistance,
which isn’t so bad. But he pushed his way
through the open door? Yes, I’ve run into that one. Where’s the resistance
he’s pushing against? My objection to this cliché is its frequency and its lack
of detail. How about:
I wriggled between the dancers.
He tested each stone
before he trusted his weight to it.
She wielded her red
pen like a machete over a jungle of turgid prose.
They gorged on a smorgasbord.
The river nearly
carried us off, but we floundered to the other bank.
He took one bold step into
the room.
Yes, these sentences are longer, but much more vivid.
Clichés serve a purpose. They are a kind of shorthand we use
without thinking, in the faith that our readers will know what we mean. Indeed,
if you never use a cliché your writing may feel foreign or unnatural. However,
we can do better. We can use stronger verbs, more precise nouns and more descriptive
adjectives to create a sharper picture in our readers’ minds. Examine your use
of clichés. If they are not the best way to get your ideas across, turn on your
heel and work your way through to better writing. Better yet, ditch the cliché
and get creative.
