Print Lingo: Cliché

Another day, another dollar. Mind over matter. Think outside the box. 

Ah yes, ‘clichés.’ We hate them, but we just can’t stop using them. 

Again and again and again. 

In fact, English is a language overflowing with expressions that are considered to be ‘clichés’, even though no one seems to be able to arrive at a consensus about what exactly categorizes something like a ‘cliché.’ 

The basic consensus is that a ‘cliché’ is something that’s unoriginal, worn out, or repetitive. According to Merriam-Webster, ‘cliche’ means: “1. A trite phrase or expression...2: a hackneyed theme, characterization, or situation 3: something (such as a menu item) that has become overly familiar or commonplace.”

So where did the ‘cliché’ come from? You guessed it: the printing industry.

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree 

‘Cliché’ is the French word for stereotyping in the printing industry. Instead of casting whole plates from metal, the French cast frequently used phrases in one block; which saved them a lot of time. 

The sound that the metal made when creating these stereotype plates imitated the  French verb ‘clicher’ meaning “to click.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the ‘cliché’ was: “A stereotype, electrotype, or other plate used for printing an image; a stereotype of a wood engraving made by impressing a matrix into the surface of molten metal.”

In 1817, the English Monthly Magazine Volume 43 mentioned ‘cliché’ in regards to printing technology, “Being able to multiply the matrices of the same subject by means of a counter-proof, the cliché only is superior to it.” 

At the time, ‘cliché’ was an object, and a useful tool: a physical piece of communication that made the printing process more efficient. The type-setters could simply stamp the phrase on the page and keep going, instead of setting and resetting the type (kind of like your email making suggestions). 

Sooo Cliché

These commonly used type-phrases, printed over and over, were used so much they were grouped into a category called ‘clichés.’ In 1881, MacMillian's Magazine, Volume XLIII, printed the first known use of ‘cliché’ as a noun, referring to something being unoriginal or overused: “He was evidently devoted to..the constant and facile clichés of diction which characterise Ciceronian prose.” 

Of course, no one can say with complete confidence what a ‘cliché’ is, exactly. To you it’s a catchphrase, to me it’s slang. While the notorious ‘cliché’ is often condemned in writing, it belongs to us, the speakers of the English language. Somewhere, sometime, some clever person “coined” a phrase, and now, the phrase carries the weight and glow of some accumulated knowledge of English. 

As a speaker of English, ‘clichés’ are your heritage. So use them well and use them proudly.

And when life hands you a lemon, turn it into a ‘cliché.’