Dennis O'Toole
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Pro-Tips to Avoid Cliches That I Can't Even

5/29/2015

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The line between cliché and colloquial expression is fine. Consider, for example, the idea that there is “a line” between two categories and that the thickness of it is“fine.” Cliché to thee, adage to me.

Or what if I say, “Friendo, this here toilet’s flushing mechanism just hit a home run.” Have I uttered a tired cliché or used an expression that, like my accent, tells the listener that I am an American? I choose the latter interpretation. It’s not that I am fond of stock phrases. I am just a generous soul who would prefer to think that the speakers and writers I encounter are displaying hallmarks of their culture, not foreign objects clogging their mental pipes. Lack of eloquence is not crime, and stock phrases “are there for the taking” so people who don’t know how to say something clever “can get through the day.” 

So the merely inelegant does not invite the sting of my mace, nor the heat of my blade. Nay, my wrath is reserved for the lazy cliché, the phrase too graceless to be colloquial, too devious to be polite, and too faddish to mean anything but that the person has not thought about what he is saying. Or worse, what he is writing.

I have compiled a brief list of internet-era clichés that we need to put onto a raft in the middle of the ocean, along with the collected works of Aerosmith and Starbuck’s Coffee’s roasting methods. After a small ceremony we will give the raft a shove, and then never look upon their like again:

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The Porking of Madame R is Priced to Move

5/28/2015

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Picture
You can read "The Porking of Madame R.: An Erotic Mystery" for as low as $1. Or, for as high as $1. Click here or on the picture to go to Amazon.com, aka the Everything Store. Remember, every time you buy a copy, I get $0.35 cents. The rest goes delivery drone R&D for Jeff Bezos's master plan to annoy the hell out of humanity in 2026. Sure, it sounds cool now, but just imagine the constant whir and buzz of eight-pound drones dropping off trinkets and gadgets to building after building, all day, every day, even while you sleep, even out in the sticks. They'll get caught in trees and attacked by owls and sever cable lines when you are tying to watch Top Brownie Whisperer or whatever crap is on TV then, and you'll complain about how Amazon eliminated pretty much every job in the world aside from drone maintainance engineer, including yours, but you will secretly buy everything from Amazon yourself because, hey, they'll deliver a measly Snickers at 5 AM directly through any open window in less the time it would take to walk to CVS and for half the price. Damn. 

Wait, what? No, I mean: buy my book please. It's a comedy. That's all I am giving away about it.
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    About Dennis

    Dennis O'Toole is an all-set cobra jet creepin' through the nighttime.  He lives in Chicago. 

    If you need to reach me, dial:
    denotoole AT SYMBOL gmail DOT co LETTER M.  

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