The college football season is at its end – for all practical purposes – and Bowl Week has come and gone. With that behind us, the cliché-quotient will again draw down to a bearable level. Football announcers are likely the greatest perpetrators of the hackneyed phrase, those sayings that are “as good as gold.”
I was in hopes of hearing a cliché for the ages but it just didn’t happen. I wanted the color-announcer to describe the ball-carrier as being adept at “running north and south downhill in space when taking it to the house.” There are probably a dozen others that could have been stacked on to build the perfect collective.
No one seems to find the humor in the clichéd phrase quite the The New Yorker, which has long been the go-to source for cartoon versions, as demonstrated by their ballplayer-in-the-boardroom example. They knock ’em ‘out of the park.’
Rivka Galchen writes on the topic of clichés in the Sunday Book Review of this weekend’s New York Times. It’s an interesting column, even if she fails to address the headline: Why Do We Hate Cliché? She does a great job describing how our language has been shaped by phrases that have been passed down for generations.
They often endure even when the times and places that produced them have passed on. When, for example, did we start to say “passed on”? When did glory start showing up in blazes and majorities become vast? When did war become something we wage? When did social commentary so often become searing, and was it around the same time that a certain demographic took a fancy to seared scallops? Why is lyrical something we wax, and why is a whip something we want to be as smart as? At some point someone’s goat was got, someone’s envelope was pushed and the mouth of someone’s gift horse was examined. None of these things happen any more. But we still use the old phrases…
As notable clichés go, I have my own list. I’ve wondered, for example, why treasure is always in a trove. Why does a bus that has left the dangerous roadway always ‘plunge’ into the ravine? How come people die of ‘apparent’ heart attacks? How are they apparent without an EKG machine attached? And is ‘passing away’ somehow different when it isn’t apparent and simply a – heart attack?
There are just so many.
Then, there are some that have to be appreciated for their originality (an oxymoron there… the original cliché). ESPN’s Stuart Scott, who on Sunday lost a long-running battle with cancer, had my admiration early on in his career, with his description of a player performing under duress: He was as “cool as the other side of the pillow,” a phrase that suited Mr. Scott himself. No doubt there are others to his credit, but they are phrases so distinct as to be nearly his trademarks, and their usage by another announcer would be akin to plagiarism.
On the other hand (and why is it on a different hand? Never a foot!), scoring a touchdown is invariably accomplished by “taking it to the house.” The able pass receiver has “big mitts” more often than not. And he’d get his “boots on the ground” just as soon as he quits “running in space.” Truthfully, if there is not a space to run in, the fellow with the ball is pretty quickly brought to the ground. Sometimes, “smash-mouth-football” style.
There are fewer bells being rung, given the new attention to the serious effects of concussions, but that particular cliché-chime hasn’t completely left us. And I don’t object to all the tried-and-true phrases. Give me a “Hail Mary” at the end of any close game, when the “long bomb” is the trailing team’s only prayer for a win.
Frankly, I believe ESPN is “missing the boat” in failing to capitalize on the frequency of the Big-C deliveries. Maybe a downloadable scorecard on which each trite description could be noted, with some Las Vegas odds tossed in to make a wagering sport of it. I’d be “happy as a clam” to keep a running score.
While you are warming up to that idea, I’ll remind you to come in out of the cold for lunch this week. Irish Stew, Shepherd’s Pie, and Potato Soup are the perfect comfort food when it’s as Cold As A…
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