My 7 Least Favorite Cliches
In an attempt to clean up the way we speak, I’ve chosen a few expressions that I’m trying to get removed from our everyday speech this year.
“He’s going to eat us out of house and home.” – Look, I understand that if someone quite literally did not stop eating, eventually the cost of the food would cause you to miss mortgage payments and lose your house to the bank. So “eaten out of house” I understand.
But the home too? Can someone eat so much that it breaks up the very bonds of the family unit? Can the fibers of love that hold our families together be shredded to bits by an insatiable hunger? I’m gonna say no.
“That’s like comparing apples and oranges.” – Why is it wrong to compare apples and oranges? They’re both pieces of fruit…what’s the big deal? Apples are less messy to eat and offer a wider variety of choices. Oranges taste better and make a better juice. Which one do i like better? Oranges. There, I just compared them. Not really a big deal, was it?
Try comparing apples to something else like a pair of scissors. Now that’s a tough comparison. Next time you hear, “that’s like comparing apples and oranges.” say to them, “actually it’s more like comparing apples and scissors.”
“Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater” – No one in the history of the world has ever purposefully or accidentally thrown out the baby with the bath water. No matter how nasty or disgusting the bath water is, I can guarantee that said baby’s parents never considered ditching the baby because of it.
Not to mention that all of our sinks and bathtubs have drains these days. No one has “thrown out” any water for the past 100 years. This is the most meaningless expression in the entire English language.
“Open up a can of worms” – If I asked you to go buy me an unopened can of worms, how long would it take you? A day? A week? Forever? The only people who should be allowed to use this expression are people who have actually seen an unopened can of worms. That would render this expression immediately extinct.
“Got out of the wrong side of the bed” – Apparently people were so stupid 150 years ago that they thought putting your left foot on the floor before your right as you got out of bed was bad luck. Is it me, or have we come a long way as a culture in the past century and a half?
Not only that, think of how poor Johnny the civil war veteran felt about this expression. He lost his right leg when he stepped in a rusty cougar trap. Johnny got out of the bed on the wrong side every day. The next time you’re tempted to use this phrase, think of what it feels like to step in a cougar trap, you heartless cur.
“Bite the Bullet” – Legend has it that they used to give wounded soldiers a bullet to bite on when undergoing surgical procedures before the invention of anesthesia. Maybe I’m an idiot, but couldn’t we have found something less dangerous for these guys to stick between their clenched teeth than a live round? How about a rock? A piece of wood? An angry mongoose? I guess it wasn’t bad enough that these guys were having limbs amputated with no pain meds, we wanted to try and blow all the teeth out of their mouth as well.
“It’s raining cats and dogs” – This just doesn’t make any sense. Ever say this around a child?Their puzzled expressions say it all.
If you insist on using animals to describe how hard it is raining, at the very least mix it up a little bit. Go with something like “It’s raining bison and peregrine falcons”. While not as quick to roll off the tongue, it gets the point across while showing off a bit of creative flair.
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