My Words, My World

First drafts – A few pages in the large wilderness of the world of writing

The Cliché

The cliché.  The well-worn phrase.  The hackneyed expression.  Tiresome, aren’t they?  It’s well known to anyone, even in the early stages of writing (like me), to avoid the use of the cliché, especially in fiction.  I am in agreement but…

With the football at the moment, it brought me round to thinking of the UK press sports pages, especially football.  In this field (ha bloody ha!!) a manager HAILS a players performance – always!  Why does he not acclaim, praise or applaud it?  Because we don’t want him to.

Manager REVEALS contract talks with…  Striker REVEALS secret of Saturday success.  Why not divulge,admit or disclose?  They do, but as long as they’re revealing, the football fan is happy.

Certain words BELONG to certain spheres, hackneyed or not. Football (and possibly other sports) seems to have its own in-house vocabulary to which only fans and the sports pages are savvy to.

So why am I saying this?  To remind myself the next time I target any section of the non-fiction market (apart from football) that I would do well do understand this point.

Now I’d better get going before some great big hairy arsed defender tries to tackle me.

Come On England!!!

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8 thoughts on “The Cliché

  1. Never consciously noticed how they alway use ‘reveals’ but now youve mentioned it, I noticed it in my paper 3 times in the sports pages! 😛

  2. Thank you, and I shall continue following the adventures of Dexter and Eve 🙂

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