{"id":1220,"date":"2017-10-12T17:04:35","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T17:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=1220"},"modified":"2017-11-20T15:43:09","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T15:43:09","slug":"1220","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/chapter\/1220\/","title":{"raw":"Why is it Important to Avoid Cliches?","rendered":"Why is it Important to Avoid Cliches?"},"content":{"raw":"The general rule George Orwell tells us in his essay \"Politics and the English Language\" is \"Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.\"\u00a0 Bizarrely enough, the first website hit for this essay comes from a Russian site. . . how ironic!\u00a0 (Not <em>coincidental<\/em>. . .\u00a0 I really mean <em>ironic<\/em> here!)\r\n\r\nAll of the dicta Orwell gives us follow:\r\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Never use a long word where a short one will do.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Never use the passive where you can use the active.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\nLove that last one, huh?\u00a0 The back story there is that, to the ancient Greeks, outlanders (one of their ideas) seemed. . . well. . . outlandish, partly because of their languages' sounds.\u00a0 They sounded like \"bar bar bar,\" sort of like talking adults sound in George Shultz's <em>The Peanuts<\/em>!\u00a0 This is called a <em>metarule<\/em>, a rule about rules.\r\n\r\nCliches are grooves our thoughts enter.\u00a0 They are comforting because they are so automatic.\u00a0 Call them shortcuts to thought.\u00a0 They are stifling because they are so typical.\r\n\r\n<img class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-278\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/453\/2016\/08\/08175220\/4562341921_7ebd53115b_z-300x225-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/>","rendered":"<p>The general rule George Orwell tells us in his essay &#8220;Politics and the English Language&#8221; is &#8220;Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.&#8221;\u00a0 Bizarrely enough, the first website hit for this essay comes from a Russian site. . . how ironic!\u00a0 (Not <em>coincidental<\/em>. . .\u00a0 I really mean <em>ironic<\/em> here!)<\/p>\n<p>All of the dicta Orwell gives us follow:<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox tryit\">\n<ul>\n<li>Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.<\/li>\n<li>Never use a long word where a short one will do.<\/li>\n<li>If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.<\/li>\n<li>Never use the passive where you can use the active.<\/li>\n<li>Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.<\/li>\n<li>Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Love that last one, huh?\u00a0 The back story there is that, to the ancient Greeks, outlanders (one of their ideas) seemed. . . well. . . outlandish, partly because of their languages&#8217; sounds.\u00a0 They sounded like &#8220;bar bar bar,&#8221; sort of like talking adults sound in George Shultz&#8217;s <em>The Peanuts<\/em>!\u00a0 This is called a <em>metarule<\/em>, a rule about rules.<\/p>\n<p>Cliches are grooves our thoughts enter.\u00a0 They are comforting because they are so automatic.\u00a0 Call them shortcuts to thought.\u00a0 They are stifling because they are so typical.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-278\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/453\/2016\/08\/08175220\/4562341921_7ebd53115b_z-300x225-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/p>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-1220\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Original<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Why is it Important to Avoid Cliches?. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Joshua Dickinson. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Jefferson Community College. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sunyjefferson.edu\">http:\/\/www.sunyjefferson.edu<\/a>. <strong>Project<\/strong>: Writers&#039; Handbook. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section>","protected":false},"author":53936,"menu_order":5,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"original\",\"description\":\"Why is it Important to Avoid Cliches?\",\"author\":\"Joshua Dickinson\",\"organization\":\"Jefferson Community College\",\"url\":\"www.sunyjefferson.edu\",\"project\":\"Writers\\' Handbook\",\"license\":\"cc-by-sa\",\"license_terms\":\"\"}]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-1220","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":1184,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53936"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1326,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1220\/revisions\/1326"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/1184"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/1220\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jeffersoncc-styleguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}