Cliché about Moss gathers no stones
Quotable text: "...this picture worth a thousand words...and millions of dollars."
Citation: "Moss Loses Two Jobs After Cocaine Reports" Associated Press, ABC News Tonight, Wednesday, September 21, 2005. Original story without recast of cliché, at ABCNews.go.com.
Usage: Kicker to the television version of the story about supermodel Kate Moss losing contracts after photos in a London (England) tabloid showed her using cocaine.
Recommendation: Leave as is and give the writer a long round of applause.
Rationale: Using clichés is all right when you give them a twist as the writer (unknown) did here. It would have been easier -- though far less effective -- if the writer had simply picked up the old cliché about a picture being worth a thousand words. Recasting the cliché to greater effect is what good writing is about.
See my blog on clichés at cliche-a-day.blogspot.com.
posted by Booksville Bookclub @ 3:21 PM
6 Comments:
Hi, super blogger. Glad you stopped by. Saw your insurance site -- that's a lot of links! Looks like a complete list of insurance-related sites, one-stop shopping for everything you could ever need in insurance.
wordsworth,
Your blog site is being picked up on by 'spambots.' They tend to search the blogosphere for key words and then post automatically on people's sites. You can avoid this by activating the, 'word verification' found in the, 'template' section of your blogger dashboard. I posted on this topic a few weeks ago. You might want to review what I wrote - although I am definitely concerned about your critical eye when it comes to my writing style. If the post helps you to cut down on the spambots then, I am willing to suffer any criticism that might follow. The link for my post is called, 'Spambots and Anonymous comments, Some Friendly Advice.'
Spambots cannot ‘respond’ to the requirement for entering the letter sequence and thus end up moving on to other blogs that do not have this requirement set up. I like the feature because it keeps off-topic bloggers who are into self-promotion from posting on my blog site.
Thank you for posting on my blog and good luck with this new endeavor (it appears to me that you have had this blog up a couple of months). I like what you have to write about and it did help me to become more aware of my over-usage of clichés. At any rate, I look forward to visiting your blog in the future because it can most definitely help me. I want to be a more effective communicator. Thanks for the excellent pointers.
I hope my advice helps.
Be safe,
Joe
Thanks to "The Voice" for the suggestions on spambots.
Every reader who visits this site should know that I don't pick on anyone (unless he or she is a "puffed-up" journalist or author). I like to applaud good writing as well as lampoon poor writing, but the reason for the blog is to spark a discussion on word usage and make a contribution to the American lexicon. I will always try to alert the writer or editor if I have posted something so they have the opportunity to respond.
Correction to "The Voice" posting above: I found "word verification" on the blogger dashboard under Settings > Comments, not under Templates.
Thanks!
wordsworth,
I probably misrepresented it - your description regarding location sounds more accurate.
I'm glad it helped - I also placed you in my favorites under the reference section of my blog roll. I hope you don't mind. Your work here is important.
I look forward to reading your future posts.
Thanks
Joe
Thanks, again, Voice. I'm still learning this blog business, but it's been very interesting so far. Can you believe that I stayed up until almost 4:30 a.m. overnight reading blogs?
FYI, today I also started a blog on cliches. It's called A Cliche a Day and How to Rewrite Them.
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