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Do you love clichés?

The words and phrases we slip into conversations when we run out of constructive words to use when our attention span is ebbing. Basically we try to tell ourselves consciously not to use them as often as we do, but left to our own devices, we end up spraying them out in our chats. We need to come up with new clichés for clichédom.

It’s like a “catch 22” - why 22 and not 24?

Most of the phrases and words we use is some other smart persons work. We hear those over-used words; is it time to put them out to pasture. Or is it simply that we cannot survive without clichés?

At the end of the day; we use clichés 24/7 in the work environment, in our homes, in our social sphere
and literally irk ourselves.

Certain clichés makes us question their meaning and essence.

For example, when we say “to be fair ……” – are you not fair at certain times? Why do you have to state this?

My most hated expression has to be "to be honest …..". What does it mean? Are you normally dishonest?  

Going forward, the funniest for me because no one experiences life going backward. We hear this in the work environment very often: “going forward” we need to do X.

Another irritating phrase: the fact of the matter is.  The fact of the matter is, that there is no fact,
it’s merely the speakers own opinion.

What about the cliché touch base?

Where did this cliché originate from, it’s like we caught in a time machine with this cliché and we now touching down in 2014 and we are in “touch base” mode. Or the alternative when people invite me to touch base with them at a later date I am definitely not touching any of your bases.

“I am giving you "110%" or "150%" or any other variant. It should be 100% and nothing more. You can't get more than that … once you start adding onto to 100% it loses its worth.

My old boss used to tell us that everything was "in the pipeline".

Which one the sewer or the oil type? Hope the pipeline doesn’t have a clogging issue.
 
"I'm not being funny but..." is one of THE most annoying things that a person can say, if you not funny, “keep quiet” we don’t want to fake a laugh.
 
When someone starts explaining something in-depth to you, and then mid-way they say  "You know", actually I don’t, please explain it to me. This cliché should be made illegal

"Can't get my head round it" - a ridiculous thing to say! Round what, the corner?

"Don't just talk the talk, you got to walk the talk". How annoying is that?

“Anyway” - at the end of a sentence - is another bugbear, even for those that find themselves unconsciously using it when 'anyway' is put at the end of a sentence, it’s almost a way of changing the direction of the topic.

Clichés fulfil a certain role, to complete a thought or mask that one has forgotten a thought in the clumsiest way possible.  It's the exact opposite of cleverness, the antithesis of humour. So! “With that in mind” At least we can now use the new clichés hitting the “convo scene” like Twerk,  YOLO,  Selfie, Passion, Amazeballs; Fail
(preceded by a #), absolutely (thanks to Jacob Zuma).

Check out Saffiya's blog and follow her on Twitter.

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