By Lynn Ashby 26 Oct. 2015
THE MEETING HALL – As usual, Bottom Line took the podium faster than a speeding bullet and quicker than a New York minute. “Welcome to another occasional meeting of Club Cliche, where every shopworn and overused expression, word or term get together like fleas on a dog. This is an especially important gathering of the rhetorically challenged because it is campaign time, and no one can make our teeth grit like fingernails on a blackboard than our politicians. Of course, if you had to make six or 10 speeches a day, you would probably run out of originality. That’s why these office-seekers hire speech writers.”
If It Walks Like a Duck spoke up. “I used to be a speech-writer. Worked for Rudy Giuliani. It was easy work. All I had to do was make sure each sentence contained a noun, a verb and 9/11.”
Bottom Line continued. “First, I want to welcome back some old — and I do mean old – members like You Go, Girl, Millennials and Whazzup. Also, I see in the crowd Occupy Wall Street and your cousin, Wall Street to Main Street. Family Values, are you still around? I thought you died after the late 90s when it turned out the politicos who were using Values to death were, all that time, cheating on their third wives, popping pills and hiding payments of hush money to under-aged boys. You are close to our current shopworn campaign slogans, so let me introduce them. Where is Jeb with an exclamation point? That is an excellent way to remind people you are a Bush without reminding people you are not THAT Bush. And Jeb with an exclamation point, drop the line defending your brother with ‘He kept us safe.’ Maybe you don’t remember 9/11 but some voters do.”
Gravitas spoke up. “While we’re on shopworn political terms, we’ve had the Mainstream Media to kick around for a few years. The crowd goes wild when Sarah Palin refers to the Laaame Stream Media. But now Newt Gingrich introduces the Elite Media in every sentence. Elite used to mean better or special, but ol’ Newt uses it as a putdown — constantly. Keep it up, Newt.”
Low Hanging Fruit and On the Wrong Side of History both grabbed the microphone. “Redouble Our Efforts and Embolden Our Enemies and getting an exhaustive workouts. Also, we’ve been keeping score, and Fox News manages to use Black Lives Matter in a derogatory way on an average of 35 times an hour.”
“Well, the term has been in the news.”
“In the weather report?”
Small Ball got the floor. “If we could get off political hacks spouting meaningless phrases for a moment, no element of the media generates better burnt-out bromides than the sports press. I mean, we’ve got Cautious Optimism, One Game at a Time and Walk-Off Single, or Double or Homer. Whatever wins the baseball game, it’s a walk-off. Now we have Pick Six for an interception returned for a touchdown.
Double Down rose. “The other night on TV the sportscaster, Jack Hack, said, and I quote, ‘The Pinstripes knocked off the Halos while the Cheese Heads traded A Rod to the Fish and SloMoJo whipped Little Miss Baby Cakes.’ When he was finished Coachspeak and I hadn’t understood a word he said. So I nominate Hack for membership.”
There was a round of applause. Bottom Line took over. “As long as we’re on the media, Breaking News just gave us some breaking news: At 6 and 10 tonight there will be breaking news. There will be a 100 percent chance of the meteorologist telling us there will be a 10 percent chance of it raining somewhere. Moving on, Shout Out wants to give a shout out to Takeaway for becoming an overused noun. Also, Bad Boy thinks members In the Weeds and Cool As the Other Side of the Pillow should be stripped of their membership for lack of constant use. Now we have a sticky one. During the Ebola scare every newscast and printed story used the word Protocol. No one knew exactly what it meant, but it sounded serious. Protocol had its 15 minutes of fame and was on the way to the cliché Home for Worn Out Words when along came the sports world’s sudden interest in concussions. Most interest centered on the protection of players, long-lasting trauma and billion-dollar lawsuits. So now Protocol is back in our mind-numbing vocabulary.”
Chump Change took over. “I was just talking to Above My Pay Grade and we remembered a few more dog-eared phrases worthy of membership because of the current political campaigns. Some have been around but are getting dusted off. When talking about our borders, Comprehensive Immigration Reform is back in overuse, along with Out of the Shadows. New ones include Income Gap and its cousin, Growing Income Inequality. Skin in the Game is getting deliciously boring and redundant, if that’s not redundant. The late John Boehner used Adult Conversation in every conversation, adult or not. He also liked Whack-a-Mole and trotted it out constantly. Another potential member is Receiving Push Back, which replaced Opposition.”
Spot On stood up. “No pol gets far into a speech these days without saying Boots On the Ground, although most of them never put boots on any ground. They also like to use Speak Truth to Power constantly.”
Next was Selfie. “It hurts, but we must kick out Have a Nice Day. It had its fame, but now Have a Great One has taken over. Sorry Nice Day. And a question: Maxed Out is worn out, but only credit cards are maxed out. Why not air or carrots or the national debt?”
“Same reason only things on the Internet can go viral,” said Multitask. “You never heard of a song, slogan or fingernail clippers going viral.”
“Well, that wraps up this meeting,” said Bottom Line. “Just remember, avoid clichés like the plague.”
Ashby is plagued at ashby2@comcast.net
By Lynn Ashby 26 Oct. 2015
REDUNDANT, AGAIN
THE MEETING HALL – As usual, Bottom Line took the podium faster than a speeding bullet and quicker than a New York minute. “Welcome to another occasional meeting of Club Cliche, where every shopworn and overused expression, word or term get together like fleas on a dog. This is an especially important gathering of the rhetorically challenged because it is campaign time, and no one can make our teeth grit like fingernails on a blackboard than our politicians. Of course, if you had to make six or 10 speeches a day, you would probably run out of originality. That’s why these office-seekers hire speech writers.”
If It Walks Like a Duck spoke up. “I used to be a speech-writer. Worked for Rudy Giuliani. It was easy work. All I had to do was make sure each sentence contained a noun, a verb and 9/11.”
Bottom Line continued. “First, I want to welcome back some old — and I do mean old – members like You Go, Girl, Millennials and Whazzup. Also, I see in the crowd Occupy Wall Street and your cousin, Wall Street to Main Street. Family Values, are you still around? I thought you died after the late 90s when it turned out the politicos who were using Values to death were, all that time, cheating on their third wives, popping pills and hiding payments of hush money to under-aged boys. You are close to our current shopworn campaign slogans, so let me introduce them. Where is Jeb with an exclamation point? That is an excellent way to remind people you are a Bush without reminding people you are not THAT Bush. And Jeb with an exclamation point, drop the line defending your brother with ‘He kept us safe.’ Maybe you don’t remember 9/11 but some voters do.”
Gravitas spoke up. “While we’re on shopworn political terms, we’ve had the Mainstream Media to kick around for a few years. The crowd goes wild when Sarah Palin refers to the Laaame Stream Media. But now Newt Gingrich introduces the Elite Media in every sentence. Elite used to mean better or special, but ol’ Newt uses it as a putdown — constantly. Keep it up, Newt.”
Low Hanging Fruit and On the Wrong Side of History both grabbed the microphone. “Redouble Our Efforts and Embolden Our Enemies and getting an exhaustive workouts. Also, we’ve been keeping score, and Fox News manages to use Black Lives Matter in a derogatory way on an average of 35 times an hour.”
“Well, the term has been in the news.”
“In the weather report?”
Small Ball got the floor. “If we could get off political hacks spouting meaningless phrases for a moment, no element of the media generates better burnt-out bromides than the sports press. I mean, we’ve got Cautious Optimism, One Game at a Time and Walk-Off Single, or Double or Homer. Whatever wins the baseball game, it’s a walk-off. Now we have Pick Six for an interception returned for a touchdown.
Double Down rose. “The other night on TV the sportscaster, Jack Hack, said, and I quote, ‘The Pinstripes knocked off the Halos while the Cheese Heads traded A Rod to the Fish and SloMoJo whipped Little Miss Baby Cakes.’ When he was finished Coachspeak and I hadn’t understood a word he said. So I nominate Hack for membership.”
There was a round of applause. Bottom Line took over. “As long as we’re on the media, Breaking News just gave us some breaking news: At 6 and 10 tonight there will be breaking news. There will be a 100 percent chance of the meteorologist telling us there will be a 10 percent chance of it raining somewhere. Moving on, Shout Out wants to give a shout out to Takeaway for becoming an overused noun. Also, Bad Boy thinks members In the Weeds and Cool As the Other Side of the Pillow should be stripped of their membership for lack of constant use. Now we have a sticky one. During the Ebola scare every newscast and printed story used the word Protocol. No one knew exactly what it meant, but it sounded serious. Protocol had its 15 minutes of fame and was on the way to the cliché Home for Worn Out Words when along came the sports world’s sudden interest in concussions. Most interest centered on the protection of players, long-lasting trauma and billion-dollar lawsuits. So now Protocol is back in our mind-numbing vocabulary.”
Chump Change took over. “I was just talking to Above My Pay Grade and we remembered a few more dog-eared phrases worthy of membership because of the current political campaigns. Some have been around but are getting dusted off. When talking about our borders, Comprehensive Immigration Reform is back in overuse, along with Out of the Shadows. New ones include Income Gap and its cousin, Growing Income Inequality. Skin in the Game is getting deliciously boring and redundant, if that’s not redundant. The late John Boehner used Adult Conversation in every conversation, adult or not. He also liked Whack-a-Mole and trotted it out constantly. Another potential member is Receiving Push Back, which replaced Opposition.”
Spot On stood up. “No pol gets far into a speech these days without saying Boots On the Ground, although most of them never put boots on any ground. They also like to use Speak Truth to Power constantly.”
Next was Selfie. “It hurts, but we must kick out Have a Nice Day. It had its fame, but now Have a Great One has taken over. Sorry Nice Day. And a question: Maxed Out is worn out, but only credit cards are maxed out. Why not air or carrots or the national debt?”
“Same reason only things on the Internet can go viral,” said Multitask. “You never heard of a song, slogan or fingernail clippers going viral.”
“Well, that wraps up this meeting,” said Bottom Line. “Just remember, avoid clichés like the plague.”
Ashby is plagued at ashby2@comcast.net
