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Does This Sound Cliche?



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Sat Jan 08, 2011 2:46 am
Mickeystwin33 says...



I wrote an Informative piece for my high school speech team. At the first speech competition I placed 6th, which is pretty good. I practiced really hard for the next meet, but didn't place. I was a little upset, I knew I had down better then some of the other presenters and wanted to know what I did wrong.
I got my score sheets from the judges back, and saw that the first two judges I had ranked me 4 out of 6, that is very good. The last judge is what kept me from winning. He ranked me 6 out of 6. His entire paper was praising my piece, expect the fact that I had, in his opinion, made a cliche statement.

This is that statement: "People bully for as many reasons as there are stars in he sky."

Is that cliche? Should I take it out of my piece? I don't know, could someone give me some advice.
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Sat Jan 08, 2011 3:23 pm
Rosendorn says...



*Moved to Ask an Expert* ^^
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Sat Jan 08, 2011 3:30 pm
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Tigersprite says...



This is that statement: "People bully for as many reasons as there are stars in the sky."


What I think he meant is that it sounds a little...I don't know, cheesy? Overdone? Purple-prosed? I think he believed you could have simplified the sentence instead of using slightly flowery prose. Maybe he felt that: 'People bully for many reasons' would have sufficed, and that you didn't need to provide a simile. But no, I don't think you should take it out of your piece. Maybe you could just tweak it a bit. But then again, I'm not the best reviewer of non-fic.
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Sat Jan 08, 2011 9:59 pm
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Kale says...



I agree with Tigersprite that reworking the sentence would be better instead of taking it out entirely. Informative speeches are intended to inform rather than entertain, so keeping your language as idiom-free as possible is always a good idea.

As it stands, the phrase "as many stars in the sky" is extremely common, as are the related "there are many fish in the sea" or "as many grains of sand on the beach". When phrases are used so often, they become overused and less interesting, which makes them cliche.
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Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:29 pm
xiodinex says...



it does sound a little clichéd :/
though to be fair, i don't see how that would affect the impact of a speech.
furthermore, i don't really see the need to throw a simile into a speech unless it is just a figure of speech. maybe just taking it back to basics could work better, for example "people become bullies for many reasons" or "there are countless reasons somneone might take to bullying".
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Mon Jan 17, 2011 5:01 am
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ShadowKnight155 says...



Yeah, it is an overused statement. Say something like:

In modern society, Bullies can find more now than anything to bully someone over, whether it be Clothes, Brands(rephrase this part)of items they use, and add somethings.

Maybe use a word like myriad or plethora! Fun words! :)
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Sat Jan 22, 2011 1:31 am
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RinSuru says...



Anything that has been spoken, written, or otherwise conveyed is already "cliche".

Sorry, I could resist technicalities of things there. :P

For what it's worth, I took a technical writing class in college geared for computer science/engineering majors. Informative speechs aren't exactly the same scope as technical writing, but there is more than enough overlap for the knowledge to be useful.

In technical writing the first thing they drill into anyone who isn't getting it just yet, is the idea of "know your audience". Moreover, its getting across how much audiences can and do differ from one another. Knowing your audience is important in communication, period. However, it's all too easy to misunderstand or incorrectly apply generalizations of what it means to get inside the heads (or at least the attention) of your target audience.

As Kyllorac mentioned, it's generally a good idea to keep idioms, similies, metaphors, and other more abstract and highly subjective literary elements away from informative speech, unless it adds something useful and important that is not better conveyed otherwise.

Even with skilled and well thought out usage of these more complex elements, you should keep them at a minimum in informational type communications. Ideally, one is able to get the same "punch" and information across without using them at all. People want information in informatative speeches, and they want only the information they care about. In real life scenarios, to not taken enough time to get to know your audience beforehand is to kill your own presentation before you walk through the door that day.

You become part of the background, a bore, and even a nuasance. It comes across as you not being able to take the time or effort to care at all. This is not likely a thought for an overwhelming majority of people who give such speeches and presentations. Many pick up on the fact they are boring their audience, but struggle with figuring out the problem at hand. This is when bland/under prepared presentations go from bad to ugly; a tendancy of the nervous speaker is to start rapidly second guessing their actions based on their in the moment, paniced perceptions of their audience.

If you haven't taken much time to realize the interests of any given audience, you are (perhaps unwittedly) conveying that they are not worth your time or attention. As a result, your audience sees a time waster, and time wasters are worth no ones time nor attention. Just imagine if you presented a three page, cut and dry white page document on a microchip architecture at a "stand up poetry night". Different audiences, different interests, same underlying problems.

I agree with the posters above on editing rather than omitting the sentence at hand. I am assuming from the information presented in the context here, but it does seem like it contains pertinent information the speech would be at a detriment without. The phrasing of "for as many reasons as there are stars in he sky." really adds nothing to the subject your audience cares about (again assuming), not to mention it is cliched in terms of being a like "patchwork, on the fly" allusion that is pretty obvious in meaning despite the eloquently intended phrasing.

Replace a few words and you start to see the underlying cliche at hand:

"...as many reasons as there are fish in the sea"
"...as many bullies as there are cells in a human being".

See the cliche here? It's the formulaic, predictable sentence structure and usage, not necessarily the exact words used. You can easily fit the pattern to a T despite the endless combinations of wording possible. (speak of the cliched devil :P )

The former is more of an example of the good qualities a cliche can possess if used skillfully and in more naturally occuring environments. The trick is to tailor a cliche in a creative way that fits well with the flow of the given context, while retaining the desired meaning of the cliche. However, "...stars in the sky" and "...fish in the sea" are quite possibly the two most overused versions of this cliche that come to mind. I used the first one to help illustrate the point at hand. To use either as is, you're likely going to get a few groans, eye rolls, or inaudible sighs.

Now the latter example I gave is intended to be a very poor example of using a cliche. Keep in mind I am not tailoring it to fit the context of your speech, but worded it as such to illustrate a point. First off, it's a downright odd analogy to make in the first place, not to mention a more complex one. It still retains the meaning in terms of comparing two seemingly unmeasurably large groups. It does even more technically so if you consider that:

The percievable number of human bullies <= the total number of human beings < the number individual cells in any given human being < the percievable number of stars in the night sky.

However, the word 'cell' is very ambigious, even with the added context of of the more recognizeable term of "human being". What kind of cells does it refer to? Does the audience even know of any comparable cell we might be reffering to? People do refer to cellular phones as "cells" in common modern slang afterall. How many cells are typically contained in a human body? Is there a known estimated average we can safely assume as general knowledge?

The problem here is often caused by overthinking and the desire to work out of a cliche. Cliches depend on quick and dirty reconginition to do their work, which is typically to clarify and bring things into better perspective. In trying to force a cliche into a purpose it is not intended to serve (creativity, originality, cleverness) you've utterly destroyed the point altogether. If nothing else, you risk overloading your audience with the requirement of unrelated prerequisite knowledge to convey your message(s).

Now you didn't do the latter here for sure, but I think this is useful information for you. The latter generally happens when one fails to recognize cliches as cliches. (Not necessarily at any fault of one's own self; we're all only human afterall.) You then experience something akin to struggling with squeezing the square peg through what appeared to be the correct hole at first. Of course the square peg goes through the square hole, but I know too well from personal experience, some of the most unnerving problems are actually caused by stupid simple oversights. An extra pair of eyes and another mind or two tends to work wonders.

Don't be too hard on yourself, keep in mind that there's a fine line between further challenging yourself and beating your self bloody with the mental stick of doubt. It sounds like at least an annual event you can still look forward to taking part in. If not, there's plenty more where it came from.

I hope my insight was of any help to you. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
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