Out with the old, in with the new

What this country needs is a Cliché Czar. That eminence would ride herd on the unthinking, lazy and demoralizing use of worn-out expressions. He (or the Tsaritsa, if it happened to be a woman) would decide exactly when popular expressions become trite and would retire or ban them outright. Any citizen heard uttering an interdicted term would be flogged in public with a whip of wet noodles, a humiliating but largely symbolic punishment.

Here are five expressions that would demand immediate action.

• At the end of the day. A metaphor that was never any more colorful than the phrase it replaced, “When all is said and done,” the expression is a favorite of pompous types also given to asking themselves questions and then answering them:

Q: “Am I happy with the way the reports turned out?”   

A: “No, but at the end of the day you have to decide whether you did all you could do.”

By the way, what time is the end of the day? Midnight? Most people are asleep by then, and indisposed as far as summing things up. Five p.m.? If so, what about people who work at night? Doesn’t the expression discriminate against them?

• Think outside the box. Speakers who imagine that this piece of advice is still useful or inspiring—or that it ever was—should be placed in a box, preferably bound and gagged, and lowered into a canal somewhere. Let them think of how to get out.
• It’s not rocket science, or, alternately, it’s not brain surgery. How about giving some other professions a chance? For instance, let’s say you’re studying for the bar exams, and somebody asks you how it’s going; you could tell them, “Well, it’s not exactly pizza delivery.”
• Throw someone under the bus. Here again, let’s consider some alternatives. How many people ever ride a bus, especially politicians, who use this expression as much as any group? Wouldn’t it be more apropos for them to say “They threw him under the taxi,” or “He threw her under the limo”? Anyway, whatever happened to the good old expression, “Let’s throw him to the dogs”?
• Bucket list. The time has come to terminate this once-novel term. Let’s give an equal opportunity to some of the multitude of other metaphors for death. How about (Grim) Reaper list, (dirt) nap list, worm (food) list, (pushing up) daisies list, or (give up the) ghost list?

What should be on every language lover’s list-formerly-known-as-bucket-list? Running for Cliché Czar. 

  

A be-night-ed expression

Having seen the annoying "at the end of the day..." already attain the status of a cliche in its relatively short existence, we were wondering: Why its popularity?

We're guessing it's because it sounds metaphorical and lends a touch of color to an otherwise drab pronouncement ("At the end of the day, I had to think about what's right for my family and I.").

But as poetry we feel it lacks that certain je ne sais quoi. In the first place, what does it mean, exactly? Is the end of the day at nightfall? Then what about the night? Or is the end of the day when one goes to bed?

And what about the next day? Do you have to reassess the previous day's events and come to a conclusion again at the end of that day?

All in all, it's pretty unsatisfactory, as sayings go.

What was wrong with "When all is said and done," or even "All things considered?" These are perfectly serviceable expressions and not ones that someone reaches for to make himself sound eloquent, as if he'd just invented a novel turn of phrase.

These are my thoughts on the matter -- at the end of the day.