An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual grammatical rules. A cliche is a word or phrase that has been overused to the point of having lost vigor. Idioms are by no means always cliches.
An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual grammatical rules. A cliche is a word or phrase that has been overused to the point of having lost vigor. Idioms are by no means always cliches.
An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual grammatical rules. A cliche is a word or phrase that has been overused to the point of having lost vigor. Idioms are by no means always cliches.
An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual grammatical rules. A cliche is a word or phrase that has been overused to the point of having lost vigor. Idioms are by no means always cliches.
George Tamayo writes: What is the real difference between an idiom and a clich? Idioms and clichs are two different things, and while idioms can be clichs and clichs can be idioms, they should be kept distinct. An idiom is an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual grammatical rules of a language or from the usual meanings of the expression's constituent elements. For example, the expression kick the bucket meaning 'to die' has nothing to do with kicking or buckets, but the entire expression has a set meaning that is familiar to most people. (And no, I don't know the origin of that phrase, so don't ask.) Idioms can be analyzed in regard to how idiomatic they are, and there is not necessarily agreement about whether or not something is an idiom. The usage writer E. Ward Gilman has observed that the word "idiom" is usually positive, and people use "idiom" to refer to expressions that they approve of but that are otherwise problematic. A clich is a word or phrase that has been overused to the point of having lost its freshness or vigor. A clich can be a fashionable phrase ("at the end of the day..."), a proverb ("don't count your chickens..."), a simile ("strong as an ox"), or a single word ("Whatever."). The word clich is almost always pejorative, and people are told to avoid them ("Avoid clichs like the plague," as one self-referential joke has it). An idiom can be a clich--in fact, it's likely that many idioms will be somewhat clichd--but it does not have to be; and clichs are by no means always idioms. Aside from the most general, always applicable advice--"use your judgment when you write," and the like--one can't be too specific about how to use clichs and idioms. For clichs, on the one hand, to overuse that expression, one should try to avoid hackneyed language; on the other, words and phrases become popular for a reason, and judicious use of them should not be entirely discouraged. Idioms that are not clichs will rarely bother anyone, as long as the meaning of the idiom is not obscure. The word clich is a borrowing from French, where it refers to a stereotype printing plate; compare, semantically, the words stereotype and boilerplate. It is first found in the language sense in the 1890s. The word idiom is a 08/01/2013 18:58
