When is something “clichéd” or “trite”?: Difference between revisions

A cliché is an expression that used to be clever, but became worn-out with too much use, like an over-played pop song. Clichés show laziness in composition, a return to the same expressions that your grandfather used to dazzle his friends with. Leave these expressions alone; instead, come up with another way of saying what you want to say — something fresh and creative. Here are some examples, as if you need them:

Often clichés are so old, they have lost their original significance, like “dead as a doornail.” Clichés are to be avoided like the plague, and never put quotation marks around them.

Like clichés, trite expressions are so familiar in popular vernacular (“marketing speek”) that they have become tired, like a those overly baggy jeans. Like wearing those once-cool jeans, avoid trite expressions and clichés in your writing: they are inappropriate, tired, and predictable:

If you can answer it with a “duh!” then you should leave it out of your paper.