Clichés That You Dislike

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I generally like English in its full expression, but there are a few clichés that peeve me. I don't know why some people say them, as if they're funny. One cliché that really makes me grind my teeth in agony is I don't bite! Or maybe I do! If I don't bite! wasn't bad enough, we have to deal with this mysterioso uncertainty about whether the interlocutor is actually a cannibal! I think we can read further into a person who says such thing's attitudes, too.

Is it such a stretch to suspect a person who says I don't bite! Or maybe I do! has an identity disturbance? First of all, they're not so sure what they'll do. I mean, if they can't even predict whether or not they'll do something so—so bizarre—how can they know who they are? Most people are pretty certain whether they are cannibals or not; I know some people have a certain scholarly skepticism about everything, but I'm pretty sure this isn't on the same intellectual plane as the God question. Now I'm pretty sure I'm not a cannibal, but maybe I should ask my mom. Not all her cooking tasted, well, right!

These people who say this cliché usually have loads more if you'll just spare them a couple of minutes of your time. If they begin and end the same sentence with Your mom!, get up and leave! You know it's hopeless. They might think they're the next Tom Cruise or Cameron Diaz, too, because they're parroting all their famous movie lines. If we're lucky, someday they'll learn to express thoughts of their own, and we'll all breathe a little easier.

Oh jeez. Excuse me for being my goofball self. For goodness sakes, lighten up!! Just because I occasionally like to toss a few cliches doesn't mean I don't have thoughts of my own. Stop judging me.

Last edited by mikibacsi1124 on 30 Aug 2005, 6:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Were not in Kansas anymore Toto. Its used WAY to much.

Yeah, I happen to like annoying cliches

Especially if I'm in a conversation with someone who's all uppity/superior with their nose in the air... I can like intentionally anger them without seeming overly rude by doing that

the phrase that i dread the most is "smile! it may never happen!! !! !"
i would like to know what the "it" (that may never happen) is and why the person who uses the phrase is so confident that "it" hasn't ALREADY happened. i have noticed that bus drivers, in particular, appear to have a frenzied penchant for using this phrase.

Biting can be violent in one context and sexually arousing in another. This expression plays on that ambiguity. Its generally something a girl says to a boy when she is flirting and wants to appear a bit 'wild'. I think its kind of wierd when a guy says it though (possibly because guys might be seen as more threatening?)



'Your mum' is, I think, a shortening of the old 'Your mums so fat/ugly....' jokes. The advantage being of course that the speaker doesn't have to actually think of a joke.

I'd agree most people who say that are chavs and you probably don't want to associate with them.

Lots of cliches bug me...one that particularly bugs me is when somebody says something is "like riding a bike". I don't know how to ride a bike and probably lack the balance to do so. I don't know who started using that expression but it annoys me so much.

I actually dfid forget how to ride a bike.

I can't think of any cliches but I hate people using "ret*d" and "ignorant" as insults without actually having them refer to what they mean (i.e. an IQ and a lack on knowledge, respectively). Don't even get me started on using "gay" as an insulting adjective. ((It's just so fantastically TACKY.))

Learning to ride a bike is something most people did as children, so its used as a metaphor. Must kind of suck for people in wheelchairs too...

Understand that NTs need rotes (cliches) to communicate. They seriously can't function without them. It is a part of their language and you've got to tolerate it if you wish to talk to them (of course, they don't tolerate OUR verbal style )

OK News anchors are the worst with the cliches. I can always hear them coming. Is there not any other way to end a story??
Can't think of an example of hand, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

It occured to me recently that cliches are the memetic equivalent of inbreeding.

Or maybe some people just think it's fun to say some of them.

Neurotypicals are afraid of independent thought. Not incapable, afraid. Once you realize this, you start noticing it everywhere.

My least favorite cliché is "could care less." Not only is it overused, but no one who uses it seems to notice that it means the opposite of what they're trying to say! Somewhere along the line, some fool misheard the phrase and started copying it, and now look -- it's everywhere. Ugh.

Clichès fill up an imagined 'vacuum' in which many people seem to be uncomfortable, they can't think of anything to say, so they parrot a clichè to compensate for this imaginary deficit.

One of the justifications I received for clichès was that any stock phrase, even structured phrases, repeated widely and often enough, would eventually become clichès. I think this was mant to somehow legitimate the use of clichès, though somehow it never did quite justify their use to me.

It was never really this aspect that annoyed me so much as the fact that most clichès are supposed to contain a kind of 'condensed wisdom', which means that it expresses something that through force of rote repitition has gained an authority many orders of magnitude above that which it would ordinarily merit. The sentiment and opinion encapsulated by a clichè derives its authority through being widely perceived to be unchallengeable. It is this latter point that irritates and rankles with me, as well as the fact that people who use clichès are often co-opting this 'condensed wisdom' and passing it off as a property of themselves.

And now for some caveats:

Advertising slogans which carry a simple message can sometimes fall into popular usage. Similarly, some advertising campaigns can comandeer popular folk-sayings and clichès as a means of trying to sell the products of the advertising agency's clients.

I can't think of any examples off-hand, but there are bound to be some.

Something else that occurs to me is that some children can often hear of 'sayings', 'expressions' and clichès, then use them indiscriminately. At a young age it can be considered a novel use of language, even if one doesn't fully understand what they mean. I have to admit that I may have done this on more than one occasion myself, though the popular sayings in circulation tend to irritate me including (but by no means limited to), the perenniel "smile, it may never happen", '"turn that frown upside down", plus countless other vacuum-fillers people sometimes emit for the sake of making a social noise that is remarkably free of semantic content.

Well you know what, your mom doesn't like cliches! Oh!

Using expressions doesn't have anything to do with fear of thinking for one's self or with having a lack of imagination. Expressions and cliches are just part of our language (like slang). All languages and cultures have them and use them.

Neanthumain, do you literally grind your teeth at cliches and will you really breath easier if people stop using them? Anyway you used cliches to debase cliches. Two wrongs dont make a right!