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# In Praise of Clichés
- URL: https://thedailyeudemon.com/in-praise-of/
- Published: 2023-01-25T05:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2024-03-23T21:09:25.000Z
- Author: Eric Scheske
- Tags: Literature, Briefly

### Avoid stale phrases. [Orwell](https://ericscheske.medium.com/bend-it-like-orwell-2235a5a9aaf9?ref=thedailyeudemon.com) called them "dying metaphors." Robert Fiske called them "moribund metaphors." They're sayings that have been used hundreds of time but haven't yet made it into regular vernacular.

### "Emotional rollercoaster," "It's a jungle out there." Things like that.

### They're the stylistic equivalent of the high five.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ea/fd/eafdb338-c9b6-4f87-8363-78ab94cc3a18/content/images/2023/05/high-five-david-puddy.gif)

### They're closely related to the cliché. A cliché is a trite phrase that substitutes for thought. If you want to assure your friend, or your reader, that you're not really engaged in the dialogue, use a cliché.

### *Friend: "I don't know what to do. My husband left me with five small children. Sob, sob, sob."*

### *Response: "Into every life some rain must fall."*

### That phrase was beautiful when Longfellow created it, but it has become ugly. It is now a phrase that assures the other person, if only implicitly, that you really don't give a s\*\*\* about her problem or you're simply too stupid to offer a thoughtful response.

### I believe every decent writer agrees with the above.

### But clichés might not be entirely bad. They might reveal a lack of explicit thought, but maybe they contain a level of implicit thought: embodied wisdom, perhaps.

### They might, in other words, show a lack of left hemisphere thinking but simultaneously show a level of respect for implicit wisdom that, though it might escape immediate articulation or clarification, the right hemisphere appreciates.

### [That, anyway, is what I think the essayist here](https://currentpub.com/2023/05/08/long-form-fresh-cliche/?ref=thedailyeudemon.com), drawing on the interesting David Foster Wallace, is saying.

> This is not the praise of cliché that I started out to make. It is, rather, a plea for contentment with basic wisdom. And it is condemnation of hucksters who cannot tell the difference between originality and foolishness, or creativity and novelty. There is such a thing as cliché. But let’s not, in our attempt to avoid cliché, avoid reality as well.

---

### Literature, said Martin Amis, is a "war against cliché." It's a war I like to think I wage here at TDE. But there's no reason to be self-righteous about it, especially when the occasional cliché might offer more than what meets the left hemisphere. 

[Martin Amis, R.I.P.On the late British novelist.![](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/lamp-magazine/production/uploads/favicons/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png?w=152&h=152&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1674591075&s=adf9080089d297b8ae3f5af7a13366a6)The Lamp MagazineMatthew Walther![](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/lamp-magazine/production/uploads/Screen-Shot-2023-05-23-at-11.58.58-AM.png?w=1200&h=630&q=82&auto=format&fit=crop&dm=1684857570&s=2f9355086bf89d5abb73878f3db0aee9)](https://thelampmagazine.com/blog/martin-amis-r-i-p?ref=thedailyeudemon.com)