On the other hand and other cliches

[Mavdog]

Aren't we all guilty as charged?.... except the point about "tacky ties" as I've sworn to not wear ties anymore!!
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'At the End of the Day' Tops Cliche List
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LONDON - At the end of the day, it's the most irritating cliche in the English language. So says the Plain English Campaign which said the abused and overused phrase was first in a poll of most annoying cliches.

Second place went to "at this moment in time," and third to the constant use of "like," as if it were a form of punctuation. "With all due respect" came fourth.

"When readers or listeners come across these tired expressions, they start tuning out and completely miss the message — assuming there is one," said Plain English Campaign spokesman John Lister.

"Using these terms in daily business is about as professional as wearing a novelty tie or having a wacky ring-tone on your phone."

Lister said people should follow the 1946 advice of writer George Orwell: "Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print."

The Plain English Campaign, which offers annual awards for good use of the language, surveyed its 5,000 supporters in more than 70 countries for the poll.

Other terms that received multiple nominations included: 24/7; absolutely; address the issue; around (in place of about); awesome; ballpark figure; basically; basis ("on a weekly basis" in place of "weekly" and so on); bear with me; between a rock and a hard place; bottom line; crack troops; glass half full (or half empty); I hear what you're saying; in terms of; it's not rocket science; literally; move the goal-posts; ongoing; prioritize; pushing the envelope; singing from the same hymn sheet; the fact of the matter is; thinking outside the box; to be honest/to be honest with you/to be perfectly honest and touch base.

Formed in 1979, the Plain English Campaign is an independent group that campaigns against cliches, jargon and obfuscation, particularly in official and public documents.

[Chiwas]

This is our topmost, "at this moment in time":

glass half full (or half empty);

[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[Smiles]

i say "like" too much. every time i catch myself, i just hate it!! i'm even embarrassed if i'm around someone who i think will notice it. it's just such a useful word - makes the statement or suggestion more tentative, so no one can be AS offended because you obviously gave yourself "room for error" in the way it "came across". it does NOT bother me when other people use it - strange, eh?

my mom says "the bottom line is" all the time. i HATE "the bottom line". i tell myself to suck it up and get over myself though. who am i to get haughty over a phrase she obviously really enjoys?

[MavKikiNYC]

I think lists like this are cliché.

What's more, IMO, not all of the expressions are appropriately classified as 'clichés'. A 'cliché' should express an idea, with at least some degree of metaphor or attempt at expressiveness, which not all of these do.

Many, if not most, of the terms listed are more discourse-functional than metaphorical. The use of 'like' described below, is a such a use. There's no metaphorical quality at all to such a use, rather it is strictly a discourse marker, much like "kind of/kinda" or "sort of/sorta", signallling, as Smile points out, that the speaker is attempting to describe or characerize something, though he may not be capturing the thing exactly. (The fact that at one point in time adolescent females used to use this particular discourse marker to egregious excess and to acutely annoying excess should not detract from it's functionality.)

So PEC, which probably also finds the use of acronyms cliché, is just making a list of expressions that its member(s?) find annoying. I can't help noticing, however, that many of the expressions seem to have an American-English flavor to them, so I can't help wondering if there might not be a little bit of a linguisitic inferiority complex coming through as peevish defense of the Queen's English.

Let people talk. Expressions will come and go. Trendy uses will pass. And anyway, you're not the boss of me, limey.


How often do YOU say these? 1) Often, 2) Occasionally, 3) Rarely, 4) Never.

at the end of the day--Occasionally
at this moment in time--Never
like--Occasionally.
24/7--Occasionally. ( I also like 247365, and I find the inclusion of this expression particularly misguided. It has become PURELY functional, and has no expressive or metaphorical application at this moment in time.)
absolutely--Often.
address the issue--Rarely
around (in place of about)--Occasionally.
awesome--Rarely/Never.
ballpark figure--Occasionally.
basically--Occasionally.
basis ("on a weekly basis" in place of "weekly" and so on)--Occasionally.
bear with me--Rarely. (What about "bare with me"? Ocassionally.)
between a rock and a hard place--Rarely.
bottom line--Often.
crack troops--Rarely.
glass half full (or half empty)--Rarely.
I hear what you're saying--Rarely. (I'm ususally not listening.)
in terms of--Ocasionally (What's the non-cliché alternative anyway?)
it's not rocket science--Rarely. (I agree here. I hate this one.)
literally--Often. (What's wrong here? What's the alternative? This has a very specific intensifying meaning in many cases.)
move the goal-posts--Rarely. (But I don't hear this one over-used that much either.)
ongoing--Rarely.
prioritize--Often
pushing the envelope--Rarely. (I never really liked this expression--never quite got it or identified with the TopGun mentality that spawned it. It has come and gone. It is, at this moment in time, more passé than cliché.)
singing from the same hymn sheet--Never. (Never said it, never heard it.)
the fact of the matter is--Occasionally. (But why is this any more or less cliché than 'in fact'?
thinking outside the box--Occasionally. (Agree it used to be overused, but it's trending out.)
to be honest/to be honest with you/to be perfectly honest--Often. (Too functional to dismiss.)
touch base--Often. (I used it in an e-mail this morning already. This, too, has become more functional than expressive, so I really don't get the beef.)

[MavKikiNYC]

Also, what's the problem with "on the other hand"? This is a highly functional phrase, that's much less-stilted and stufy than some of the alternative expressive equivalents.

When a word or phrase or expression is so functional that it has been reduced to an acronym in cyber-speak, it has probably long sincee crossed the functional threshold and become ingrained into usage, such that it really shouldn't be considered "cliché".

[mavs_afroman]

The one I really hate now is "in terms of". There used to be a time when people asked a question directly. I so tired of hearing radio personalites using the phrase especially.

"How would you rate the mavs defense in terms of rebounding?" Why not just ask about the rebounding. Errrrr