This, a reminder about the weakness of clichés, is primarily for my students. One of the reasons we preach against clichés (apart from their use being lazy writing) is the power they have to stop the reader.
That happened when I read Chris Smith’s report on bicycle thefts in the most recent issue of Vancouver magazine. He wrote:
Last year, 1,497 bikes were reported stolen in the Vancouver area…. Whether more bikes are being stolen or more thefts are being reported in anybody’s guess, but bike theft is reaching epidemic proportions in Vancouver….
“Anybody’s guess” didn’t stop me, but “epidemic proportions” did.
Some quick math. There are about 600,000 people in Vancouver. If five per cent of them own bikes (that’s a guess, but it seems reasonable), that’s 30,000 bicycles. A lot of bikes — almost 1,500 — were stolen last year, but that’s only five per cent of my estimated total of 30,000. Bike thefts may be “nearing epidemic proportions,” but they are coming from a long, long way off.
The disconnect between 1,497 stolen bikes and the cliché “epidemic proportions” was a snag in the flow of the story. I got so hung up trying to make the two fit that I never did finish the article.
Clichés not only deaden the writing, they have the potential to kill it all together.
TAGS: WRITING, JOURNALISM, CLICHÉS
I have to amend my post — i did some research on “epidemic” and discovered that an epidemic, to be called such, merely needs to exceed expected limits calculated from established patterns, and i think a 20% jump in bike thefts in one year qualifies.
However, this does not make it any less of a cliche, and i should have investigated this definition before i used it rather than after it was published. I teach metaphor theory, and tend to use them heavily in my writing, and sometimes they get away from me. But i will change my self-effacing comment to regard the use of “epidemic” in this context as technically correct, but still a lazy effort.
Chris is right: the article was good. I eventually went back and finished it off.
I wrote the article in question (that’s right, i ego surf after my articles come out — so sad). Anyway, Mark is right, it was a terrible cliche, and demonstrates how one bad cliche (or related sin) can kill a whole piece. It’s a shame he didn’t read further — the article turns out pretty good, but the cliche sucks. I also teach writing in Vancouver, and will use this as an example in my own class this fall. Bonus lesson, kids: if you endeavor to learn from your own writing, it will only get better.