"Oh, that's soooo cliche (roll eyes)"
I have spent the past week pouring over the thesaurus and racking my brain to think of different ways to say "wish upon a star" and then I stopped. Why do I feel the need to do this? In the poem that presented this issue, the speaker was saying that this person took her wishes and destroyed them. I believe the speaker is also implying that what was once simple, sweet, and without complication was destroyed by this person. If "wish upon a star" was "ruminate on the brightly lit spherical orb in the night sky", it wouldn't carry the same impact, the same meaning.
Cliches are not our enemy - why do we treat them as such? Yes, as wordsmiths, we challenge ourselves to reach above the cliche, to find the words that say "it" better - but sometimes the simple and familiar says it all. It says more than all. I would really like to know your thoughts on this. . . .
And to the writer of the poem I was speaking of - I wouldn't change "wish upon a star" to anything. It's perfect.
I have spent the past week pouring over the thesaurus and racking my brain to think of different ways to say "wish upon a star" and then I stopped. Why do I feel the need to do this? In the poem that presented this issue, the speaker was saying that this person took her wishes and destroyed them. I believe the speaker is also implying that what was once simple, sweet, and without complication was destroyed by this person. If "wish upon a star" was "ruminate on the brightly lit spherical orb in the night sky", it wouldn't carry the same impact, the same meaning.
Cliches are not our enemy - why do we treat them as such? Yes, as wordsmiths, we challenge ourselves to reach above the cliche, to find the words that say "it" better - but sometimes the simple and familiar says it all. It says more than all. I would really like to know your thoughts on this. . . .
And to the writer of the poem I was speaking of - I wouldn't change "wish upon a star" to anything. It's perfect.
1 comment:
i understand your argument, but i have to disagree. clichés turn me off in a big way. they carry this sort of, i dunno, i wanna call it “connotation baggage”—at least in my mind, when i come across one, it automatically takes me out of whatever i’m reading and my brain kind of goes “fuck! i’ve heard this a bunch of times before! don’t cheat me like this!”
and about the “wish upon a star” cliché, obviously translating it into different words is not going to help. i don’t think anyone was suggesting the poet whip out a thesaurus and figure out a different verb for “wish” and a different noun for “star.” finding a different way to state an idea means having to come up with an entirely new expression of whatever image or emotion or somethingorother—it might even mean restructuring the entire poem just to be original. by the way, i think a lot of the words you used to describe the idea the poet was trying to portray do it much more justice—sometimes all one has to do to avoid cliché is be more literal, direct, etc…i mean, there are a lot of ways to do it, but certainly writing “…what was once simple, sweet, and without complication was destroyed…” wouldn’t put anyone off, would it? personally i get a lot more out of that sentence than “wish upon a star.”
i found an article online that i think makes some valid points, especially the following:
“The problem with clichés is not that they contain false ideas, but rather that they are superficial articulations of very good ones. Clichés are detrimental insofar as they inspire us to believe that they adequately describe a situation while merely grazing its surface. And if this matters, it is because the way we speak is ultimately linked to the way we feel, because how we describe the world must at some level reflect how we first experience it.”
http://www.donshewey.com/1999_zine/cliche.html
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