Response +answer

In a message dated 8/9/2006 11:14:17 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, anonymous-comment@blogger.com writes:

Ehh, this might be just a pointless rambling from a creative writer, but I disagree that cliches are especially effective, at least as far as writing goes. I think that people use them because we are inherently lazy and they meet a minimum standard.

You could say that someone was "rattled." Or you could give a detail like "She was so nervous that her shaking cup spilt all over the Government Relations intern." (True story!) I think the non-cliche is more effective (even though it's longer) because it allows the listener to assess how nervous she was, rather than just taking the speaker's assessment that she was "rattled."

Cheers,

BMac
AEI Government Relations

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Posted by Anonymous to Wattenblog at 8/09/2006 08:14:26 AM

Everyone knows what a cleeshay stands for. It's shorthand. It works.
Ben