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    The Little Book of Clichés
    The Little Book of Clichés
    The Little Book of Clichés
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    The Little Book of Clichés

    By Alison Westwood

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    About this ebook

    From everyday idioms to Shakespearian sayings

    Many of the phrases we use everyday are so woven into our vocabulary that we never think to question their origin or meaning. How often we comfort the broken-hearted with the reassurance that there are ‘plenty more fish in the sea’, or ruin a surprise by ‘letting the cat out of the bag’. We don’t really mean our friend should consider dating a fish, nor do we keep cats in bags, but we use these phrases regardless. Did you know that telling someone to ‘get off their high horse’ comes from the 13th century? Or that ‘hair of the dog’ wasn’t originally a hangover cure, but a belief that applying a dog hair to a dog bite would cure the wound? In the times of Roman Baths, getting the ‘wrong end of the stick’ didn’t translate as a simple misunderstanding, it actually referred to a communal toilet where a stick was used to pass a cloth from person to person, unfortunately some would often receive the wrong end...

    The Little Book of Clichés explores the history and meanings behind hundreds of phrases that we use, from everyday idioms to Shakespearian sayings.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCanary Press eBooks Limited
    Release dateSep 4, 2013
    ISBN9781907795138
    The Little Book of Clichés

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    • 3/5
      Don't expect deep literary analysis (for that, perhaps try Walter Redfern's "Puns: More Senses Than One"). This is a lighter run-through of punsters through the (p)ages, from Shakespeare to Tim Vine (via the likes of Dorothy Parker, WC Fields, Tommy Cooper, and a Wilde/West punfight), with profiles of each and a selection of their most notable calembours. Westwood's writing style seems fairly pedestrian though, and whoever checked the proofs was having an off-day (as on p.18 we see "wquivalent" (!), on pp.19/21 the running head defaults to "TITLE", and in several places paragraphs end without a full stop).

    Book preview

    The Little Book of Clichés - Alison Westwood

    INTRODUCTION

    ‘Not all my clichés are original’, quipped American football coach, Chuck Knox, wittily highlighting that clichés and originality tend to be poles apart. So, you might ask, how come the works of William Shakespeare, the finest exponent of the English language, are littered with clichés? Seemingly he cares not a fig for his lingua franca, or is it all much ado about nothing?

    Before we condemn the Bard out of hand, perhaps we should heed the words of artist, Salvador Dali, who famously said, ‘The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.’ Shakespeare was never reluctant to popularize expressions that appealed to him as a writer, so he happily borrowed imagery, idioms and expressions from other writers and thinkers. So was the Bard really a purveyor of clichés? And, while we’re on the subject, what exactly is a cliché, and where does the word come from?

    According to the French dictionary, Le Petit Robert, the word ‘cliché’ comes from the French printing industry. It originally referred to a template consisting of a thin metal sheet cast from moveable type (also known as a stereotype), depicting an exact copy of a page of text. This could be used to print multiple identical copies. Previously letters were painstakingly set one by one to make words. The invention of the cliché meant that printers could save time and effort by casting common phrases used over and over again as a single slug of metal. Thus ‘cliché’ came to mean a ready-made phrase.

    It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that ‘cliché’ soon gained another, negative meaning in French, which was subsequently adopted in English, namely ‘an idea or expression that is overused’, rendering it unoriginal and almost meaningless. This implies that clichés are always to be avoided, and reflect badly on anyone foolish enough to use them either in speech or in writing.

    Not so fast though, clichés also accumulate a whole host of slightly different meanings over time, and a clever writer can use these layers to great effect. The legendary wit, Oscar Wilde, delighted in turning clichés on their heads in order to inject humour into his writing. It was he who uttered the immortal words, ‘one should always play fairly when one has the winning cards’, ‘hatred is blind as well as love’, and ‘I have nothing to declare but my genius.’ He enjoyed using clichés because he loved to play with and challenge them.

    The man many regard as Wilde’s modern-day equivalent, Stephen Fry, famously said, ‘it is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then like most clichés, that cliché is untrue.’ Many a cliché has led to widespread (and often unfavourable) stereotyping of a group of people or a species of animal. But when precisely did we decide that dogs are man’s best friends, that owls are wise and lions, proud?

    When used appropriately, clichés can be a source of original humour, as in former Liverpool FC manager Bill Shankly’s observation that ‘Football is not a matter of life and death – it’s far more important than that.’ Clichés can also highlight facts and conjure up images that, though well worn, fit the context perfectly and make the remarks used more memorable and entertaining.

    How do we separate the wheat from the chaff? To help form a clearer picture, perhaps we should simply remember the origins of the word, the ready-made phrase that so many of us churn out without thinking. The golden rule should be if it entertains, use it (again), but if it grates, it’s not great. Now you can consider the clichés we’ve chosen and decide for yourself – would you use them or lose them?

    ANIMAL INANITIES

    The English language offers up a whole menagerie of animal themed clichés. In fact, it’s hard to think of a member of the animal kingdom that doesn’t have a well-known phrase associated with it. From the insect world we have ‘ants in your pants’, ‘a flea in your ear’ and ‘a fly in the ointment’. Birdlife has given us ‘the early bird catches the worm’, ‘as free as a bird’ and of course ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’. From the larger mammals we get ‘a bear with a sore head’, ‘an elephant never forgets’ and ‘having a whale of a time’. These phrases are such a part of our everyday lives, that we often assume they are based in fact, that dogs really are a man’s best friend, weasels are sneaky and peacocks are proud creatures. This section looks at a variety of famous animal clichés; are they based in horse sense, or have we been barking up the wrong tree?

    Champing at the bit

    What it means…

    Anxious or keen to get started.

    Where it comes from…

    ‘Champing at the bit’ is a term that comes from horse racing. When horses are impatient or nervous, and especially if they are being restrained by their jockeys, they start chewing on the bit (a metal bar that is inserted into the horse’s mouth to enable the jockey to communicate with it), causing them to salivate excessively.

    How to use it…

    ‘I can’t wait to read the rest of this chapter, I am champing at the bit.’

    ‘Calm down please, you’re getting saliva on my shirt.’

    Gordon Bennett!

    ‘Chomp’ is a dialect variation of ‘champ’, which means to chew vigorously or nervously, to grind the teeth, so here’s a tongue-twister to remind you of the correct usage: ‘Champions don’t chomp, you chump, champs champ.’

    Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted

    What it means…

    Taking the correct measures, too late.

    Where it comes from…

    This saying originally referred to horse-stealing. As early as the mid-14th century, there were references to the futile practice of taking preventative action after the crime has been committed: ‘When the hors is stole, steke (lock) the stabull-dore.’ c. 1350 Douce MS 52 no. 22. Across the channel, at about the same time, the French were also heard to lament: ‘A tart ferme on l’estable, quant li chevaux est perduz’,

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