On Cliché

16 Dec, 2024

Clichés are everywhere. As Wikipedia aptly puts it, cliches are sayings or ideas that "lose their original meaning" due to "overuse."

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" must've been a good saying when it first came out. It refers to the idea that when things don't go your way, make it go your way, in the "pave your own road" mindset.
I first heard this phrase in second grade (if I recall correctly), when it was used on me by a teacher to cheer me up when I was sad. Clearly, the meaning of this beautiful sequence of words was lost upon my 7/8-year-old mind -- "if life gives you lemons, screw life; don't make lemonade, revolt against life itself for being so stupid" is probably what I thought instead.

And there we find the first fundamental problem of cliches. Besides being overused, cliches are over-utilized. Sure, it makes sense to say "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" to someone who just got handed a bunch of lemons randomly, or it makes sense to use that same phrase when trying to cheer your best friend up. But when we (as a society) try to use that cliche in places where it doesn't belong -- whether that be in a boring HR presentation (or something) or trying to defuse an angry 8-year-old who's problems are foreign to adults or in a phrase used in everyday conversation -- the phrase has literally no meaning. If I tried to console you by saying "when life gives you lemons, go make lemonade," I've essentially told you that
a) I have no clue what I'm talking about
b) I am most likely kinda ignorant
c) My help is of no use

(tl;dr - This person has no clue what's happening and doesn't at all know me as a person.) This forced over-use of cliche essentially ruins it and destroys this beautiful sequence of words as we humans try desperately to prescribe it any and all meaning to a phrase that has a specific meaning.

I mean, what does "make lemonade" even mean? Is it supposed to be a happy ending? Something like "wow I turned lemons, something terrible, into lemonade?" Is it supposed to mean find other resources, like sugar and water, to dilute the sad lemons into a happier lemonade? Is it encouraging us to "do capitalism" and market our own sadness? No one has any clue. And that's why this phrase means nothing. When something tries too hard be everything, in the end, it is nothing as it is dismissed and fades into irrelevance.

A second fundamental problem with cliches besides their over-use is once again, their over-use -- the fact that we've heard these magical phrases more than once. Think about the phrase "honesty is the best policy." Sure, there is merit in the phrase -- if one is honest, they do not need to spend energy upholding a web of futile lies and can focus on more meaningful things -- but overall, this phrase once again does not have a defined and clear idea in mind. Furthermore, besides being vague, it's overused. People have heard the phrase, and the magic present in those few words has been thoroughly extinguished as we humans beat this phrase to death. Thus, even though this could be a funny phrase when (for example) a store is trying to figure out their store policies, the over-use draws groans rather than laughs.

Moreover, cliches are, unfortunately, something our human brain defaults to. As Adam Neely said, repetition legitimizes. As Adam Neely said, repetition legitimizes¹. Thus, with all of these phrases being thoroughly hammered into our mind, it's no wonder that we default to them -- we think these phrases capture meaning well when in fact they fail to capture anything; rather than saying something meaningful in the moment, we default to a cliche as it is just simply hard to think of a new metaphor. And in doing so, all meaning is lost from our words -- each last drop of what could be something meaningful evaporating, leading us to wonder what went wrong².

Also, cliches nowadays, are for humor rather than actual meaning. Rather than using the phrase "honesty being the best policy" for its intended purpose, since we (as a society) know it lacks meaning, we simply use it now in funny places. For example, it would be slightly amusing to say "honesty is the best policy" when discussing foreign policy in class. It would also be funny to say "honesty is the best policy" after someone tells a sad story about where being honest led them. And in 99% of the scenarios where cliches are now used, they're used because of their lack of meaning -- I'm not really suggesting that the United States (where I reside) should be honest in all their foreign affairs, I'm simply trying to say something funny by using the word "policy" in two different contexts.

As such, overall, cliches can be seen as a shared human experience. Phrases that are used so much they mean nothing anymore. And even when cliches are used, they're a shell of their former self - they're used intentionally for the lack of meaning that they have, rather than for the actual meaning/message they try to convey³.

I don't like cliches. I don't even like the word cliche. As such, I give cliches 2 out of 5 stars.