Part One of a Two-Part Series on Ridding your Speech of Clichés
The debt ceiling debate has shed light on many problems, not the least of which is our penchant for speaking in clichés. After weeks of listening to politicians on both sides of the aisle sound like used car salesmen, we now have a list in my house of the Top Five sayings that should never be uttered again in this century:
- At the end of the day
- Kick the can down the road
- To be perfectly honest
- Robbing Peter to pay Paul
- Thinking outside the box
Thanks to the endless parade of talking heads, these expressions are plumb wore out (I just had to do that). When you don’t have anything substantive to say, or you haven’t prepared, these clichés come in handy. Many of our clients will respond to our feedback on eliminating clichés by saying that it’s important that they sound casual and conversational. That’s fine. You can still appear easy-going without uttering one of the five bizblabs above. There is a difference between conversational speaking in which you avoid fancy, ivory-tower-sounding words and sleep-inducing catch phrases.
Do your audience a favor and delete these expressions from your memory.
– Barbara