Been There, Done That, Decided Against Buying A Valueless Piece Of Memorabilia

What really churns my butter…what really fries my eggs…what really irons my shirt…just a few of those underused phrases we hear all too infrequently.

There is a modicum of things you never tire of hearing over and over again. The common phrases such as “You look nice” and “Thank you for a wonderful meal” may be plain pleasantries, but they simply won’t offend you, and – more often that not – cannot be challenged; unless you’re one of those souls who grows weary of hearing anything more than once, and believes a life should take into account a wider array of compliments to dish out without a previous prompt. Dissatisfied? No, couldn't be!

Clichés can be like enormous inside jokes. Where’s the logic in having an inside joke that’s not arcane? On the other hand, it can build up minor mutual understanding between complete strangers. I must elucidate - I find clichés useful, though at times, all too uninspired. In a perfect world, I’d be looking to strike a balance between use of hackneyed sayings and a person’s natural idiolect; somewhere around 20-80. Leaning too much on the words of others fails to distinguish ourselves from the crowd. Or might it be that I’m just being presumptuous?

Whatever the case, the ones that grate on me most are the comments that suggest hope for the future without any factual evidence to back it up. It’s when a person tells another than everything is going to be alright, when in reality, the person who says it is telling the other to have blind faith. Great suggestion! Many people recognise that I hate to sound cliché whenever it comes to comforting someone (as I state that I’ve said something trite, and it so detracts belief from anything further I may have to add); I try to be straight-talking about things instead. Half the time, the phrase “Everything is going to be alright” is denigrating to the intelligence of the other being, and does little to ease worries in the long term. To me, the perception of this phrase is about as well-received as the contraction of a common cold; I’d much rather be given a harsh truth, and be told to straighten out my act, or put more effort into something.

So, you’ve seen what my opinions are on that saying. Let’s look at a few others, whilst scrutinising the banality of each:

“You are what you eat.” – Originally intended to battle obesity through its shock value, only minimal dissection is required to reveal what an inane comment this truly is. Now, I am well known for my pedantry, and understand that this phrase is meant to correspond to the “fat” animals (e.g. a greedy person is going to be a pig or a cow), but why leave the damn thing so open ended? Would it lose its effect? Quite possibly, but it loses impact in this situation too. The consumption of chow mein does not make me a noodle; eating foie gras does not magically transform me into the organ of a goose. And if you eat healthily? Well, I see no apples walking the streets of London; do you?

“If *insert name here* jumped off a cliff, would you follow?” (or any close variants) – A common tactic employed by parents to keep their children from succumbing to peer pressure. And since so many parents thought it was a good idea to use this whenever hearing a child of theirs had agreed to take part in tomfoolery with other youngsters, the expression has so become cliché. Often, the act of misbehaviour doesn’t constitute an extreme comparison like this, which would immediately decrease the relevance of the saying in the first place.

“It’s not you. It’s me.” – Ahh! The old “how to end a relationship quickly” technique! If I remember correctly, I’ve both used this, and had it used on me; the former of which I look back on with disgust. Not a particular nice way of letting a person down nowadays, as the second anyone tries to say it, all of the truth flushes out of their body, and into the wind; fluttering away like a little butterfly made of lies. I wouldn’t recommend you ever say this; chances are that the person you’re trying to dump has heard it before and therefore knows the element of truth is missing from it. Those that suffer from having this as the real reason to break up will confidently word it differently, and elaborate precisely.

Keep in mind that not every cliché is pain to the human ear. Some clichés have rich value to them, and exist as good conversation starters. You don’t want to be going too “out there” in how you approach somebody new, as you may offend or confuse them. What I want is to see a healthy balance between the originality a human has to offer the world, and a few decent, common phrases we can fall back on to mildly flatter or engage others when necessary. Maybe next time you’re locked in conversation with someone, you could put a little bit of your own personal spin on a well-known expression to alter its reception, whilst retaining its fundamental meaning.