THERE’S A CLICHÉ FOR THAT!

Clichés, upon their inception, are probably striking and thought-provoking. Word gets around. That’s how they become clichés! And because of them, you need never be at a loss for words.

When It’s Time to Calm Down:

  • Don’t get your knickers in a twist
  • Cool your jets
  • Dial it back a notch
  • Get a grip (on yourself)
  • Keep your hair/hat on
  • Beside oneself

Energized:

clichés
  • Pumped up
  • A shot in the arm
  • High on life
  • Raring to go
  • Chomping at the bit
  • Full of fizz

Shame:

  • Has his tail between his legs
  • Hang his head
  • Can’t look herself in the mirror

Pride:

  • Proud as a peacock
  • Pride goes before a fall
  • Big fish in a small pond

Don’t Be Fooled/Naive:

  • All that glitters is not gold
  • Don’t buy a pig in a poke
  • You can’t judge a book by its cover
  • Always read the fine print

Group Solidarity:

clichés
  • All for one and one for all
  • Get with the program
  • A chain is only as strong as its weakest link
  • Close ranks
  • All hands on deck

Shy or Speechless:

  • Cat got your tongue
  • A closed mouth gathers no feet
  • Tongue tied

Outgoing/Confident:

  • Life of the party
  • Belle of the ball
  • Could hold a conversation with a stump

Fast:

  • At the speed of light
  • Time flies
  • In a jiffy
  • Back in a sec
  • Take off like a bat out of hell
  • Before you could say Jack Robinson

Slow:

  • At a snail’s pace
  • Dragging one’s feet
  • Slow but sure
  • Moving as slow as molasses in January

Pay Attention to the Unspoken:

  • Read between the lines
  • Read the room
  • Pick up on the vibes

Having Fun:

  • Having the time of one’s life
  • Without a care in the world
  • Kicking back
  • Party down
  • In hog heaven
  • As happy as a clam

Bad Mood:

  • Got up on the wrong side of the bed
  • Face like a stormcloud
  • All bent out of shape

When It’s Bad:

  • A fate worse than death
  • Have to reach up to touch bottom
  • Up a creek without a paddle
  • If I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all
  • Behind the eight (8) ball

Rich:

  • Rich as Croesus
  • More money than sense
  • Money to burn
  • On Easy Street
  • Puttin’ on the Ritz
  • Top drawer
  • To the manor born
  • Blue blood
  • Born with a silver spoon in his mouth

Poor:

  • No two nickels to rub together
  • Poor as church mice
  • Barely keeping body and soul together

When All Perceived Choices are Bad (What Psychologists Call an Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict):

  • Between a rock and a hard place
  • A lose-lose proposition
  • Between the devil and the deep blue sea

When Something has Both Positive and Negative Aspects (What Psychologists Call an Approach-Avoidance Conflict):

  • Take the bitter with the sweet
  • Every cloud has a silver lining
  • Two sides to the coin

Old:

  • Old as dirt
  • Long in the tooth
  • Of advanced years
  • Old as Methuselah
  • Classmates with a caveman
  • With Noah on the ark
  • Old as the hills
  • Bloom is off the rose
  • On the far side of (arbitrary year)

Young:

  • Babe in arms
  • A babe in the woods
  • Younger than springtime
  • Wet behind the ears

Ugly:

  • Ugly as sin
  • A face only a mother could love
  • A face that would crack mirrors
  • S/he’s been hit with an ugly stick
  • Ugly as a hat full of holes

Beautiful:

  • Pretty is as pretty does
  • Show-stopping beauty
  • Breathtaking beauty
  • Adonis
  • Greek god(dess)
  • A face that could launch a thousand ships
  • Blonde bombshell
  • Drop-dead gorgeous
  • As fine as frog’s hair
  • Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
  • Beauty is only skin deep
  • Built like a brick sh#thouse

Frightened:

  • Scared to death
  • Scared out of my wits
  • Heart-stopping fear
  • Causing gray hair

Cowardly:

  • Lily-livered
  • Scared of one’s own shadow
  • Spineless
  • Cold feet
  • Yellow through and through

Brave:

  • Lion hearted
  • Nerves of steel
  • Stand your ground

Stupid:

  • Dumb as a stump
  • Not the brightest crayon in the box
  • Was behind the door when brains were being handed out
  • Dumb as a sack of hammers
  • Not playing with a full deck
  • If s/he had another half a brain, it would be lonely
  • Not burdened with an overabundance of smarts
  • Twice as strong as an ox and half as smart
  • A few fries short of a happy meal

Smart:

  • Sharp as a tack
  • Head stuffed full of brains
  • An Einstein

Optimism:

  • Time heals all wounds
  • When life gives you lemons, make lemonade
  • Don’t cry over spilled milk
  • A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step
  • Always look on the bright side

Pessimism:

  • Chicken Little
  • Black Cloud
  • The glass is always half empty

Difficult:

  • An uphill battle
  • Rowing against the current

Easy:

  • Low-hanging fruit
  • Easy as pie
  • Walk in the park
  • Piece of cake
  • Like taking candy from a baby
  • Walk-over

Clumsy:

  • Two left feet
  • All thumbs
  • Made of knees and elbows
  • Able to trip over air
  • Graceful as a hog on ice

When the Outcome is Obvious:

  • The writing’s on the wall
  • It’s all over but the shouting
  • As plain as the nose on your face
  • A foregone conclusion

Planning/Strategy:

  • Play your cards right
  • Measure twice, cut once
  • Look before you leap
  • Better safe than sorry
  • Bring it to the table
  • A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
  • A good beginning makes a good ending
  • Strike while the iron is hot
  • An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure
  • A stitch in time saves nine
  • Hedge one’s bets

Surprise:

  • A bolt from the blue
  • Gobsmacked

Ending Conflict:

  • Kiss and make up
  • Declare victory and go home
  • Bury the hatchet

Envy:

  • Green with envy
  • Channeling the green-eyed monster
  • The grass is always greener

Love:

  • Opposites attract
  • Love at first sight
  • Love you to the moon and back
  • Head over heels in love
  • Love conquers all
  • All is fair in love and war
  • A faint heart never wins fair lady
  • Love you more than life itself
  • Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
  • Absence makes the heart grow fonder
  • Out of sight, out of mind

Patience:

  • Time will tell
  • Haste makes waste
  • A watched pot never boils
  • All in due time

Pregnancy:

  • A bun in the oven
  • In the family way
  • Knocked up
  • A shotgun wedding
  • Big as a house
  • Big as the broad side of a barn
  • Biological clock is ticking

Sterility:

  • Shooting blanks
  • No little swimmers

Sober:

  • Sober as a judge
  • On the wagon
  • Always the designated driver
  • Teetotaler

Drunk:

  • Smashed
  • High
  • Plastered
  • Shellacked
  • The morning after the night before
  • The hair of the dog that bit you
  • Drunk as a skunk
  • Three sheets to the wind
  • Full of liquid courage
  • Cork high and bottle deep

These are just a few examples. You can find hundreds online, should you want to!

Bottom Line: What was once a fresh way of looking at something has become weak, losing its novelty or figurative and artistic power—but clichés are still useful!

Clichés—True But Tired!

Today’s blog is actually less a blog than a rant, a list of true but trite phrases that mark writing as unimaginative. So here goes.

bird hand
A bird in the hand
A piece of cake
Abject terror
Alcoholic haze
Angelic smile
Black as coal
Black as midnight
Black as sin
Bone chilling
Brothers in arms
cliches true tired
Cat-like
Catastrophic
Doe eyed
Drunken frenzy
Dumb as a stump
Easy as pie
Evil through and through
Eyes like saucers
Fighting tooth and nail
Guilty as sin
Hair raising
Heart pounding
heart pounding stopping
Heart stopping
Herd mentality
High as a kite
Honey tongued
Lion-hearted
Moaning and groaning
Need to know
Nubile young thing
Old as dirt
Paralyzed in fear
Pure as the driven snow
pure driven snow
Ran for his/her life
Rich as Croesus
Roaring like a lion
Rock hard
Scared stiff
Scared to death
Smoke and mirrors
Smooth as silk
Soft as butter
Soft as cotton
soft cotton
Strong as Atlas
Stood stock still
Sweet as sugar
The Midas touch
Tight as a tic
Tried and true
Walking on eggshells
Warm as toast
White as snow
Yelling like a banshee

Come up with better options. What are your pet clichés? Help your fellow writers by adding to the list!

Use Slang and Clichés Effectively

see you later alligator
In my opinion, the best use of slang is setting the time of the story. Using any of the above farewells screams the 1950s. “Gag me with a spoon” is soooo 1980s.

 

Slang has always been with us, evolving from docks, gutters, gambling dens, and society soirees. It changes with the times. That is its strength and its weakness. Used effectively, it lends authenticity to dialogue. But if writing about any time other than the present, tread carefully. Inappropriate slang can ruin the tone and undermine the credibility of the entire story.
dewdroppers waldos slackers rosemarie ostler
As with so many things, there are books for that! When writing “historical” fiction in any genre, books such as this should rest alongside a good dictionary and a convenient thesaurus.

 

A seldom recognized use for really old slang: when used judiciously, it can add freshness to writing.
The Vulgar Tongue Francis Grose
When the meaning is clear but the phrase isn’t current, it can sound creative. E.g., cow-handed to mean awkward, brazen faced to mean impudent or shameless, sugar stick to mean a penis.

 

When not to avoid clichés: when adding authenticity to dialogue. Some say you should avoid clichés like the plague, but at the end of the day, using them is as American as apple pie. Why reinvent the wheel when there are so many kick-ass expressions already out there? Don’t overdo it, but recognize that people really do say things like, “I’m wound tight as an eight-day clock” or “nutty as a fruitcake” or “Keep a stiff upper lip.” Sometimes a repeated cliché can be an effective speech tag for a specific character.

 

Last but not least, browsing a good book of clichés can be informative. Kick the bucket has meant to die since at least 1785!  And keep your shirt on, meaning to stay calm, predates 1854. On the other hand, kick up your heels, meaning show spirit or having a great time, is a far cry from 1500, when it meant to die. So, one more for the reference shelf!

 

use slang cliches effectively dictionary cliches james rogers