MARK MY WORDS

By and Large, The Most Annoying Clichés Ever

By Betty Kirkpatrick

160x120mm • 144pp • £5.99 • PLC • ISBN 978-1-906051-20-4 • September 2008

This is a compilation of the most annoying clichés around today; those expressions that you hear time and time again and that make you cringe with irritation when you do hear them but which - even more annoyingly! - you find yourself using out of sheer habit!

The word cliché is derived from the French verb clicher meaning to stereotype. Originally, a cliché was a printing term, a word or phrase that had been repeated time and time again in the same form from a single printing plate. 'Cliché' then became a linguistic term and this idea of something that is used again and again is at the centre of its meaning. 'Cliché' is often defined in dictionaries as an expression or idea that has been used so often that it is no longer effective or interesting. This is the sad thing about some clichés. They were once fresh and effective ways of expressing an idea and it is ironic that these attractive features made them so overused that they became stale and sometimes annoying. This is as true of modern expressions as it is of longer established ones. In these days of swift and global communication, changes to the language occur and spread far more quickly than they ever did before. Thus, an expression that at first sounds effective and interesting may become overused so quickly, especially in the media, that it becomes a cliché within a surprisingly short time. Such expressions include between a rock and a hard place, flavour of the month, go the extra mile, hit the ground running, it goes with the territory and push the envelope.

This book is packed with clichés, put into context and given their origin where possible. Just spot how many you use on a regular basis without meaning to!

mark my words
This cliché sounds as though it is trying to impress the listener with the importance of what the speaker is going to say. However, it is more usually a meaningless remark that has just become an annoying habit on the part of the speaker, as in Mark my words. The bus will be late again.

by and large
A cliché whose meaning is impossible to deduce from the actual wording. It is used to mean that something is mostly true, as in By and large, the team played well, but it is often used rather meaninglessly. The cliché has a surprising origin. It was originally a nautical phrase popular in the seventeenth century in the days of square-rigged ships. To sail by and large meant to keep a ship on the right course and sailing at a reasonable speed, despite any change in the wind direction. It acquired its more general meaning in the eighteenth century and has survived till now as a cliché, although it is less common now than it once was.