The Idiom: Yesterday's News

The use of idioms has spread like wildfire lately, and it's not a pretty picture. To my eye, it's crystal clear that idioms are holding writers back. Unfortunately, the cure is not as simple as taking two and calling me in the morning.

The first order of business is to get to the root of how and why idioms have become the talk of the town. The blame cannot fall squarely on the shoulders of the writers, because everybody and their brother knows a cliche can sneak up on you and make itself at home. Writers often give up the fight because using idioms is as easy as pie. If they aren't paying close enough attention, writers might even labor under the delusion everything is right as rain, but all that glitters is not gold.

Of course, many idioms have a nugget of truth within, but we must not let that fact lead to them becoming too big for their britches. Just off the top of my head I can think of myriad reasons why idioms are bad to the bone. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that rampant use of idioms makes readers' minds as slow as molasses in January. And is it just me, or are most idioms older than dirt? I'm sure your grandpa's grandpa knew what "no skin off my back" and "by the skin of his teeth" meant, to those of us in the here and now it's just gross. This weird obsession with skin is holding us all back.

Even my good friend Joe, who's not the sharpest tack in the box, tells me: "Idioms are not the bee's knees. I wouldn't be sorry to see them go the way of the buffalo."

One cannot overlook the occasionally offensive nature of the idiom. Think of the dogs, will you? They are loyal to a "T" and often serve as our best friends. One dog, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told me there are a lot of canines who are hot under the collar about all the slanderous idioms directed their way. What, exactly, is a "dog day of summer" they wonder. Why does it rain cats and dogs? Why does a person get "dog tired" or "sick as a dog"? My source even claims that dogs really don't mind if you bother them while they sleep. One idiom the dogs do enjoy is "there's more than one way to skin a cat" though that gets back into all that skin business. All the dogs ask is that we stop dogging them.

Other figurative language has repeatedly denied their relationship with idioms, even though it's as plain as the nose on your face. "To us, overuse of idioms is like cooking using mediocre ingredients," said the head of the Simile Board of Trustees. "We have boxes of unused, high-quality similes stacked as high as the clouds. Instead of hearing 'smooth as a baby's bottom' a million times a day, what about a 'smooth as an old man's head' thrown in there somewhere?"

The hot-headed folks over at Metaphor Incorporated issued the following terse statement: "We hope the idiom has reached its twilight." The International Hyperbole Organization was similarly short of breath: "We've told our writers to cut down on their idiom use at least a billion times." Personification Today held a lengthy press conference on the matter. I won't give you the whole story here, but suffice to say that the reporters' chairs sighed with relief when it was all over.

If there is one silver lining to this cloud, it's the fact that there are still a select few who buck at convention. As long as there are writers committed to shaking things up, writers who are giving it their best shot, there is still reason to believe. Me personally, I'll start using idioms when hell freezes over. There's no way on God's green earth you could get me to use an idiom. This may seem like a devil-may-care attitude, but my conscience is clear. I sleep like a baby at night.

My advice to all those aspiring writers is as simple as 1,2,3: Avoid idioms like the plague.