Cliche – the word of the French origin which originally designated the relief image made on any solid material for receiving a printing print. This value is used to this day. But for most of people the second word meaning of "cliche" became more habitual. By this term it is accepted to designate the expression which lost the figurativeness, beaten and jammed from the constant use.
What cliches happen
Such phenomena of language as stamps and kantselyarizm are very close to the concept "cliche". A time they are also carried to a cliche.
Kantselyarizma are the steady turns peculiar to official style: "on the basis of the above", "owing to the held events", etc. In official papers they more than are appropriate. But if such turns are transferred to the speech informal, not so important, oral or written, then it looks it is bulky and it is ridiculous, the speech becomes the "dead", deprived live emotionality and figurativeness.
Stamps became widespread with the advent of periodicals. It was convenient to journalists not to create every time a literary masterpiece, and to use over and over again in the articles set expressions, such as "according to messages of official sources", "it is no secret" and so forth. With irony the stamps which came from Soviet period are remembered today: "Homeland granaries", "with feeling of deep satisfaction" and so forth. Stamps depersonalize the speech, do it dim and inexpressive.
Actually cliches are the turns of speech, steady combinations of words accepted to the use among native speakers. Initially many of them bore in themselves a bright and exact image, for example, "a steel bird", "the queen of fields", But as a result of the frequent use this image grew dull, ceased to cause any associations. The speech filled with a cliche reminds a moneybox with copper coins: it seems, more is told, than there is enough, all this sounds, rattles, but value in statements is not enough.
It is a little about advantage of a cliche
But to say that the good, competent speech is the speech free from a cliche and stamps too it is not absolutely right. These expressions can serve also kind service at their correct application and the appropriate use. For example, habitually and normally to welcome each other the words "Hello!" or "Good Afternoon!", but not to invent every time the new greeting is individual for each met person. And these phrases, as well as other set expressions, phraseological units used in the speech are a cliche too! The cliche does our speech simple and convenient, allows not to think of what needs to be told in standard situations of communication. Good service cliches serve and at a learning of foreign language: having remembered the set expressions appropriate to a case, the foreigner can enrich and diversify considerably the speech on the stranger for it language. Cliches as it was already told, and in a business, official written language, and in scientific works are irreplaceable. The excessive figurativeness to these styles to anything, ridiculously to compare the business letter and a literary masterpiece of an epistolary genre. The main task of official and scientific style is to convey necessary information in a correct form, and a cliche, characteristic of official or scientific style, help to make it, structuring the text, helping to keep the sequence of the narration. But even in here you should not abuse a cliche.
When cliches are inappropriate
And here in the literary work of a cliche – the undoubted evil. Than more often they are used by the author, especially a pathetic impression is made by its creation. The value of the literary work in many respects is defined by novelty and eccentricity of images, and the cliche creates opposite effect. In oral speech it is absolutely impossible to avoid a cliche. But nevertheless it is necessary to try to diversify the speech, to learn to inform of the thoughts, emotions the interlocutor in fresher form – it will help to become pleasant and interesting in communication.