Tag Archives: cliches

Trite Trophy Winner 2010: At The End of The Day

Posted on December 26, 2010 by languageandgrammar

Gene Collier, a sports columnist for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, has awarded the “Trite Trophy” to a deserving sports cliche for the past 27 years. In the column, he mocks commonly used sports phrases and mixed cliches in what has … Continue reading →

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Hot as a Firecracker for the Fourth of July

Posted on July 3, 2009 by languageandgrammar

Language and meteorology are intertwined, of course, since communicating the forecast accurately is just about as important as getting the forecast accurate in the first place, and cliches in meteorology are as ineffective (and annoying) as they are in any … Continue reading →

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Close But No Cigarette

Posted on April 30, 2009 by languageandgrammar

We’ve all done it–either misstated something or slightly mangled a common statement or cliche, and the result was a humorous sentence that didn’t make sense. I call this “close but no cigarette.” One of our blogger friends, Pamela Villars, recently … Continue reading →

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Baseball’s What Not to Say

Posted on April 6, 2009 by languageandgrammar

I apologize to all of the people I know who will read this and think I’m singling them out because they will most likely make some version of the statement during the next 24 hours. I’m not, and that’s part … Continue reading →

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Road to Hoe

Posted on February 10, 2009 by languageandgrammar

If there is anything worse than using a cliche, it’s trying to use a cliche and getting it wrong. You would think we wouldn’t get something wrong that’s been repeated so often! I like to call these instances Close but … Continue reading →

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Like a Bull in a China Shop

Posted on January 29, 2009 by languageandgrammar

Most cliches have enough truth to them that, while the use of the phrase is monotonous and ineffective, there is at least some logic behind using it. That’s apparently not the case with the ever-popular like a bull in a … Continue reading →

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I Want to Be a Statistic–Sometimes

Posted on April 23, 2008 by languageandgrammar

A statistic is a numerical value or fact or an inanimate numerical representation of a piece of information. Examples include 53% of the the vote, $3.59 cents per gallon, a .309 batting average, and 63% of all bananas that my co-worker brings to … Continue reading →

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