What's in a cliché?

When Brent Cobb was member of the Gazette staff, he and I used to go round and round about whether old sayings -- also known as clichés -- are good or bad.

Since I'm originally from the Ozarks, I kind of like the old sayings. To me they are good method of communication because they paint a word picture. When you say something such as, "Cold as ice," there's no question what you mean.

Brent acknowledges that old, familiar phrases have their place, but -- as a professional writer -- his concern is that they are an easy way out. By overusing familiar phrases, he contends we are robbing ourselves of the opportunity to find new, fresh ways to express ourselves.

Brent has an excellent point. We need to stretch our minds and our methods of expression. But, as we do, I believe we also need to remember that time-honored phrases have their place, too.

The importance of plain language was pounded home to me during a Listening Seminar I attended at the University of Colorado in Boulder. During the seminar, presented by 3M, we listened to five different three-minute audio tapes. One was a society matron from Boston. Another was an Ivy League professor. There were also talks by a fisherman, a ranch hand and a coon hunter from Arkansas.

After listening to all of them, we were given a test to see how much we remembered from what they said. The winner? Absolutely, hands down, the audience's greatest recall was of the words of the coon hunter from Arkansas.

The reason was the coon hunter spoke slowly and vividly. "That there coon shot up the tree like a striped ape. The dogs were a barkin' like crazy and the coon didn't stop 'til he reached the tip-top of that tree."

The worst recall? You have probably guessed. It was nearly a dead-even tie between the society matron and the university professor. They used big words, such as "superficial," "ambiguous" and "simultaneously."

Their messages became mixed up in the minds of the audience members, and, as a result, the recall was only a fraction of what the coon hunter's was.

The example above does not do justice to Brent's side of the discussion. He, too, believes in plain talk when it is properly used. He is a strong advocate of vivid verbs and nouns and adjectives which paint word pictures.

It's just that he thinks that I overdo the old sayings ... or cliches as he calls them.

To which, I would like to reply: "Time will tell ... It's hard to teach an old horse new tricks ... It ain't over until the fat lady sings."

Hmmm? Maybe Brent does have a point after all.