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The CASE for killing clichés

By Michael Frazer - posted Tuesday, 27 July 2004


In the words of Martin Luther King, I have a dream. There I am lying in intensive care, all smashed up and near death. I hear the doctor telling someone that I'll live – but I'll never be able to go to the football again, never be able to have sex, alcohol or pizza.

Just then the radio next to my bed comes on. It's the news. It's about me! The newsreader says, "A man is in hospital fighting for his life after..."

"Bullshit!" I scream from within. "Beam me up Hughie! Get me out of here.”

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Dream over. Reality starts. Do the journalists who write "fighting for his life" (FFHL) about seriously ill, hospitalised males actually have a master's degree specialising in "thoughts of the about-to-cark"? Or is it just another case of CASE - Clichés and Silly Euphemisms?

I've been on the CASE case for years - tossing offending bits of newspapers/copy in an empty beer box in the corner. In a recent clean-out, I found cuttings/copy/headlines which have babies in hospital, Kerry Packer, a man who attempted suicide by setting himself on fire, and even a racehorse all involved in the big FFHL.

It's probably the influence of what I call "services' speak" – that we (yes, me too) report events in the way police/firies/ambos describe them to us. We report that police are buried with "full police honours”, "a firearm was discharged”, lost people are found "safe and well”, police are looking for a "Caucasian male".

Now I’ll ask a few questions.

Are there part police honours? Was the "firearm" a pistol, rifle, machine gun or blunderbuss? "Safe and well" can mean anything for formerly lost people, from being found fornicating-in-a-friend's-bed to cold, wet, frightened and hungry.

And Caucasian. My favourite. I still wonder why so many crimes in the world are committed by people who come from a remote 1000km long mountain range (highest peak, Mt Elbrus at 5633 metres) in south-western Asia. What the hell are they on up there?

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While looking for CASEs, I typed "Caucasian" into the net and came up with another one -"taken by storm" (TBS). Seems the Russian troops had TBS the fortress of Akhulgo in those mountains during some long-forgotten war.

These days the military term TBS is just thrown into copy - an Australian model called Candice Lake has taken "New York by storm”, so says the Herald Sun. A Melbourne radio ad informed me the show Riverdance has done the same to the world.
 
What a CASE of over-hyped crap! Candice might be a star in the Big Apple's tiny fashion world, but most of New York's eight million people wouldn't know her from mud. And I have to admire any advertising copy writer who has the guts to actually write TBS and then put his or her hand out to get paid for it. A search of the net brought up an ad for a herbal hospital in Anqui, China, that tells me it has TBS renal disease. I kid you not.

Another dive into the beer CASE brings up a "staggering" collection. A press release from the Cat Adoption Centre reports "a staggering 3500 cats homed". The Bulletin: "Liberals have lost a staggering 54 federal and state seats in Victoria". Today Tonight diet story: "She lost a staggering 21 kilos."

Well I'm sorry, but none of these make me stagger.

And people don't die. They have "passed away" or, in the case of stage stars, "taken their last bow”. Some of those deaths are "untimely". Women have "lost" their husbands. Funeral attendees are "paying their last respects" in a "final farewell". Burial next? No, the dear departed is "laid to rest".

By far the biggest collection in the CASE box is devoted to "forced”. To me, for someone or something to be "forced" there needs to be an element of force or inevitability. No choice. But let's go through just a few.

Herald Sun: "Shoppers may be forced to pay a 25 cent plastic-bag tax." Is it compulsory to leave a supermarket with goods in a plastic bag? Will the checkout-chick start twisting arms up backs?

Woman's Day page-one headline: "Melanie FORCED to leave Antonio" The story inside reveals two married actors are voluntarily making movies - one in Hollywood and one in Mexico City. Force?

It's not just the Australian media which has a case of the CASEs. Various people are being "forced" according to the Business Standard in India, Middle East Online, Wichita Eagle and the Lake City Reporter.

"Fighting for life" they are in the Rocky Mountains News, Sauk Valley Newspapers, Key West Citizen and the Akron Beacon Journal.

The hunt is on for the Caucasian crooks according to the Watford Observer, Savannah Morning News, Winnipeg Sun, Otago Daily Times and the Malay Mail.

But not every use of a Cliché and Silly Euphemism is incorrect. In 2003, people in Argentina were forced to leave their homes because of flooding. Yes, floodwater was the force. An Age headline of January 1997,"Wind gust forces abrupt end to helicopter joy-flight”, is self-explanatory.

A couple of staggos I reckon are pretty right and descriptive. Racehorse Delago Brom finished "a staggering" 42 and a half lengths from the winner in the Sandown Guineas, November 2002. And 73-year-old Melbourne woman Shirley Young ran 100 kilometres in "a staggering 10 hours 59 minutes" in March 2003.

And finally, a breath of fresh air (yes, a cliché I know). The Herald Sun of June 16, 2001, on page 22 carried an 11-par story {no byline) on Prince Harry and his new girlfriend Lizzy Ward.

Just thrown into the guts of the story was this: "... she and l6-year-old Harry get on like a palace on fire". So it can be done – gently and anonymously. What a sweet dream.

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Article edited by Ian Miller.
If you'd like to be a volunteer editor too, click here.

This article was first published in The Walkley magazine.



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About the Author

Michael Frazer started his career as a journalist in 1966 on The (Melbourne) Herald. Since then he has been photographer, magazine editor, radio producer, author, radio news director and television chief-of-staff.

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