Common Mistakes: Clichés

March 19, 2009: Issue 282

We’re already working on holiday projects, so let’s talk about a lovely gift to give our readers this year: Banish’tis the season from our copy. It was a cliché before any of us were born.

Here are more expressions and treatments that have been overused:
• anything 101
• color printed in different colors
• color your world
• couldn’t be happier
• fast-forward to …
• labor of love
• outside the box
• postage-stamp-size
• puns on the word suite

When you try to come up with clever wording, the first thing that occurs to you is usually a cliché; that’s precisely why it pops up first. Take a minute more and move down your mental list. You’ll probably find something much fresher.

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