“Lost their battle with Cancer”
I have never known of anyone who succumbed to the disease which hadn’t been reported as they “Lost their battle” with it.
Some people never get a chance to “battle” it. Some don’t choose to “battle” with it.
I wish someone would come up with a new way to express this tragic circumstance.
Make no mistake…
Varying states of… (usualy decay)
I don’t think his point was that it’s never worth mentioning hard work paying off; it’s that the phrase “hard work paid off” is an overused cliche, and that a good writer would find a better way to get the idea across.
It’s my understanding that if your T-Cell cound dips to a certain measure, you have AIDS. Full-blown AIDS is when this has been the case long enough for you to suffered the effects associated with AIDS.
As much as I dislike that one, it certainly is not as offensive as the “Don’t touch that dial!” of the 1950’s. That always led to intimidation or guilt on my part.
These are some I try to avoid:
turned up missing
Last, but not least…
a mile a minute
centered around (impossible to do)
We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
That’s all water over the dam.
slippery slope
get a life (Say that again and I might take yours…;))
The statment that makes me furious: “If you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to complain.”
I almost always vote. But if I chose not to, I would still have the right to complain! You rarely hear one that would make slightly more sense: “You voted for her. You don’t have the right to complain.”
In conclusion, it goes without saying that overused cliches are getting on my last nerve. Get a grip, people! 
In my humble opinion…
Oh, you meant for writing headlines? I thought you meant he didn’t ever want you to use “hard work pays off” in a regular old sentence. Not exactly the greatest sentence in the world, but hardly ban-worthy.
I was a sportswriter for several years, and the headline I always wanted to write was “[Team A] beats shit out of [Team B].”
No one ever used it any capacity, either for headlines or captions or in the text of an article. However, if someone had said it, we wouldn’t have had any choice but to quote them accurately.
I hate the use of “whatever the current scandal is-gate”, though I did enjoy the British presses “Camilla-gate”.
But you probably could have gotten away with “Redskins squeeze out Browns.”
I have a brief window in my schedule in which to tell you that at the end of the day, getting rid of cliches and buzzwords is an idea I can run with.
Mua’Dib, I think it’s Politics And The English Language.
When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases- bestial atrocities, iron heel, blood-stained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder- one often has the curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy…
Also
It is easier- even quicker, once you have the habit- to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption than I think.
Great essay.
I find it disturbing that I use so many of the phrases listed here…
I think this is a good example of an expression that ought to be correct, but isn’t. Why is it you can say “this one” but not “these ones”?
Many members of the skydiving community (myself included) despise the use of “plunged/plummeted to his death” in the reports of fatalities in the sport. That damn cliche appears in probably ninety percent of news reports of a skydiving death. It’s especially annoying since most deaths in the sport are the result of pilot error under a perfectly functional parachute, and do not involve any sort of dramatic plunge.
Please make them stop saying “like so many” and “like so much”, particularly in “news” articles. AUUUUUGGGGGGGH! In 99% of the cases, “like” would do if you really must use such a stupid simile.
Also, EVERYTIME I read about a smell lately, the location is always “redolent with” the smell. Enough with the redolent already! I read it literally 7 times in one book. Can’t you come up with another phrase?
Number one most hated journalistic cliché:
“(Smokers/non-smokers/pot-users/pot-haters) are fuming over…”
I was going to use this! I find this so overused by lazy writers.
I used to belong to this online community in which one of the members had terminal cancer or so she claimed. I kind of had a feeling she was full of crap because she always used the “battling cancer” cliche about herself. I just kind of felt that if it was real she’d have a more original thought about it. Guess what? I was right!
There was a hilarious commercial on British telly once that ran a bunch of clips of different footballers saying “At the end of the day” in quick succession. Ever since then that one has made me laugh.
The other thing that drives me bonkers is the current use of the word “earn” to mean “buy stuff.” Earn points ! Earn rewards ! Earn a free vacation !
How about this one?
The use of city names as shorthand for whatever institution or industry the city is famous for.
Examples: “Washington” for the United States federal government.
“Lansing” for the Michigan state government, or fill in the capital and name of your state.
“Detroit” for the American automobile industry.
“Hollywood” for the movie/entertainment industry.
“Rome” for the Catholic church.
There are probably others.