A cliche rears its ugly head

And now for a review of current clichés. By definition, there is no such thing as a new cliché, but some rise and fall in popularity - a bit like a roller-coaster ride.

‘It’s been a roller-coaster ride’: this is used for any event in which a person’s emotions are engaged, the idea being that expectations, fear etc rise and fall to an extreme degree. Or perhaps, it simply means that the person has been excited a lot. The problem with this cliché is that roller-coasters always return to where they started, so in the end no progress has been achieved. In other words, it's not been a journey.

‘It’s been a journey’: this cliché is uttered by every losing contestant on a talent show. It means that they are aware of changes in their life resulting from taking part in dancing, singing, ice-skating etc. The trouble with this cliché is that most journeys (such as the daily travel to work) are tedious and involve no process of self-enhancement. In other words, they do not involve a learning curve.

‘We’re on a steep learning curve’: learning curves are now always ‘steep’, meaning that there’s a lot to learn in a short time. No-one ever says ‘We’re on a learning curve with an easy gradient’. The trouble with steep learning curves is that they reflect on the speaker: other people might think “They find the learning curve steep because they are a bit thick?” In other words, it does not help them going forward.

‘Going forward’: this is a phrase often added by managers to the end of a (or indeed any) sentence. Examples are: “We need to upscale our marketing strategy going forward”, and “I am about to go the bathroom going forward”. Management speak exists to signal membership of the management tribe, and to conceal the frightening lack of skills of many managers (usually concealed beneath an equally frightening self-confidence). See The Apprentice on television. But what do I know: I am from a sleepy village.

‘Sleepy village’: I heard this old favourite during the meeting of G20 finance ministers, who, according to BBC News reports, met in the ‘sleepy village’ of Horsham. Horsham is actually a sizeable town not far from London, and the meeting took place in a village near Horsham. Was the village ‘sleepy’? If it was like my own village, most of the inhabitants get up early to commute or work locally. As a result, there are not a lot of people around during the day, and journalists therefore assume they are all a-bed. But then, most BBC newsreaders nowadays are not interested in the news: they instead aspire to appear on Strictly Come Dancing and other talent shows where they will face their moment of truth.

Moment of truth: this dreary phrase is now used for any kind of crisis (or even a question in a quiz show). It is probably a translation of ‘el momento de la verdad’, which is used in Spain for the time at which the bullfighter plunges the sword into the bull. People who use the phrase in English should therefore consider who in their crisis is the bull and who is the bullfighter. Otherwise, they should adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards this cliché.

Zero-tolerance: this is sometimes coupled with its cliché predecessor ‘get tough’, as in ‘We should support a get-tough zero-tolerance’ policy towards...’ This phrase derives from the supposition (unsupported by evidence) that arresting people for minor infractions of the law will reduce overall crime rates. It thus part of the ‘war on crime’ which has produced more clichés than any other field of human endeavour (eg ‘crack-down’, ‘bring back the bobby on the beat’ etc). Why is this? Crime is difficult to deal with, and effective policing involves discretion when to ignore, when to caution, and when to respond. How much easier for the public and its politicians to pretend that all problems can be solved by militarising the police and treating the rest of society as its potential enemies. How much easier to use a cliché than to think for yourself.