w:cliché

{{short description|Idea which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or being irritating}}

A cliché ({{IPAc-en|UK|ˈ|k|l|iː|ʃ|eɪ}} or {{IPAc-en|US|k|l|iː|ˈ|ʃ|eɪ}}; {{IPA|fr|kliʃe|lang}}) is a saying, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, novelty, or figurative or artistic power, even to the point of now being bland or uninteresting.Gary Blake and Robert W. Bly, The Elements of Technical Writing, pg. 85. New York: Macmillan Publishers, 1993. {{ISBN|0020130856}} In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning, referring to an expression imposed by conventionalized linguistic usage.{{Cite web|date=2021-01-11|title=Cliché - Examples and Definition of Cliché as a writing device|url=https://literarydevices.net/cliche/|access-date=2021-09-30|website=Literary Devices|language=en-us}}

The term, which is typically pejorative,{{cn|date=April 2025}} is often used in modern culture for an action or idea that is expected or predictable, based on a prior event. Clichés may or may not be true.Short Story Library [http://shortstory.us.com/2009/05/thick-skin-and-writing-cliche-but-true/ Thick skin and writing, cliché, but true] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100226023613/http://shortstory.us.com/2009/05/thick-skin-and-writing-cliche-but-true/ |date=2010-02-26 }} - Published By Casey Quinn • May 10th, 2009 • Category: Casey's Corner Some are stereotypes, but some are simply truisms and facts.[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Cliche The Free Dictionary - Cliche] Clichés often are employed for comedic effect, typically in fiction.

Most phrases now considered clichéd originally were regarded as striking but have lost their force through overuse.{{Cite book | last1 = Mason | first1 = David | author-link1 = David Mason (writer) | last2 = Nims | first2 = John Frederick | author-link2 = John Frederick Nims | year = 1999 | title = Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry | publisher = McGraw-Hill | pages = 126–127 | isbn = 0-07-303180-1}} The French poet Gérard de Nerval once said, "The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile."[https://www.linternaute.fr/citation/3622/le-premier-qui-compara-la-femme-a-une-rose-etait--gerard-de-nerval/ Quotations of Gérard de Nerval]

A cliché is often a vivid depiction of an abstraction that relies upon analogy or exaggeration for effect, often drawn from everyday experience.{{cite book|last=Loewen|first=Nancy|title=Talking Turkey and Other Clichés We Say|year=2011|publisher=Capstone|isbn=978-1404862722|page=11}}{{cite web|title=Definition of Cliché|url=http://literarydevices.net/cliche/|access-date=3 January 2014}} Used sparingly, it may succeed, but the use of a cliché in writing, speech, or argument is generally considered a mark of inexperience or a lack of originality.

Etymology

The word cliché is borrowed from French, where it is a past passive participle of clicher, 'to click', used as a noun; cliché is attested from 1825 and originated in the printing trades.{{cite web |title=cliche |url=https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=cliche |website=www.etymonline.com |publisher=Online Etymology Dictionary |access-date=15 October 2024}} The term cliché was adopted as printers' jargon to refer to a stereotype, electrotype, cast plate or block print that could reproduce type or images repeatedly.{{cite book|last=Westwood|first=Alison|title=The Little Book of Clichés|publisher=Canary Press eBooks|isbn=1907795138}} It has been suggested that the word originated from the clicking sound in "dabbed" printing (a particular form of stereotyping in which the block was impressed into a bath of molten type-metal to form a matrix). Through this onomatopoeia, cliché came to mean a ready-made, oft-repeated phrase.{{Cite book|last=Knight|first=Edward Henry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gx7OAAAAMAAJ&q=Clich%C3%A9+clicking+sound+in+%22dabbed%22+printing&pg=PA566|title=Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary: A Description of Tools, Instruments, Machines, Processes, and Engineering; History of Inventions; General Technological Vocabulary; and Digest of Mechanical Appliances in Science and the Arts|date=1881|publisher=Houghton, Mifflin|language=en}}

= Usage =

File:Nambe Lake cliche.jpg

Various dictionaries recognize a derived adjective clichéd, with the same meaning.{{cite book | chapter = cliche | year = n.d. | title = The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition | url = http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/cliche | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050109211752/http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/cliche | url-status = dead | archive-date = 2005-01-09 | access-date = 2010-10-21 }}{{cite book | chapter = cliché | title = Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary | year = 2010 | url = http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cliche | access-date = 2010-02-21}}{{cite book | title = Dictionary.com Unabridged | chapter = cliché | year = n.d. | url = http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cliche | access-date = 2010-02-21}} Cliché is sometimes used as an adjective, although some dictionaries do not recognize it as such,{{cite book | editor-last = Brown | editor-first = Lesley | title = New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary | year = 1993 | chapter = cliché | publisher = Clarendon Press | isbn = 0-19-861271-0 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/newshorteroxford00lesl }} listing the word only as a noun and clichéd as the adjective.

Thought-terminating cliché

Thought-terminating clichés, also known as thought-stoppers, or semantic stopsigns,{{cite web|url=https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FWMfQKG3RpZx6irjm/semantic-stopsigns|title=Semantic Stopsigns|last=Yudkowsky|first=Eliezer|author-link=Eliezer Yudkowsky|website=Less Wrong|date=24 Aug 2007|access-date=26 Aug 2018}} are words or phrases that discourage critical thought and meaningful discussion about a given topic.{{cite book|author=Kathleen Taylor|title=Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D3tYeMLc4hQC&pg=PA21|date=27 July 2006|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-920478-6|page=21}} They are typically short, generic truisms that offer seemingly simple answers to complex questions or that distract attention away from other lines of thought. They are often sayings that have been embedded in a culture's folk wisdom and are tempting to say because they sound true or good or like the right thing to say. Some examples are: "Stop thinking so much",{{citation|title=Bothered and Bewildered: Enacting Hope in Troubled Times|first=Ann|last=Morisy|publisher=A&C Black|year=2009|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cFWgUzCWtHYC&q=%22thought%20terminating%22%20alcoholics&pg=PA29|page=29|isbn=9781847064806|access-date=October 25, 2016}} "here we go again",{{citation|title=Decision Downloading|last1=Clampitt|first1=Phillip G.|last2=Williams|first2=M. Lee|magazine=MIT Sloan Management Review|date=Winter 2007|volume=48|issue=2|url=http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/decision-downloading/|access-date=October 25, 2016}} and "so what, what effect do my [individual] actions have?"{{citation|title=Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in the Biology & Environmental Science Classrooms|first=Daniel D.|last=Chiras|journal=The American Biology Teacher|volume=54|issue=8|year=1992|pages=464–468|doi=10.2307/4449551|jstor=4449551}}

The term was popularized by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton in his 1961 book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China. Lifton wrote, "The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis".{{cite book |last=Lifton |first=Robert J. |title=Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China |page=429 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FU_ifHrIIg0C&q=%22Thought-terminating+clich%C3%A9%22+totalism&pg=PA429 |year=1989 |publisher=UNC Press|isbn=978-0-8078-4253-9}} Sometimes they are used in a deliberate attempt to shut down debate, manipulate others to think a certain way, or dismiss dissent. However, some people repeat them, even to themselves, out of habit or conditioning, or as a defense mechanism to reaffirm a confirmation bias.{{citation|title=Scientology's enturbulating lingo|first=Britt|last=Peterson|date=March 19, 2015|newspaper=Boston Globe|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2015/03/19/scientology-enturbulating-lingo/TvBESMQkV4RcxGnyrNSH1K/story.html|access-date=October 25, 2016}}

w:cliché

Etymology

= Usage =

Thought-terminating cliché

See also

References

Further reading