Clichés enjoy overuse.
But if you gag on them, you can learn to enjoy their use again…by marrying some of them to each other.
Not only is the double cliché fun to use, it packs thrice the punch of either of its parts.
“Stick your neck out” and “Go out on a limb” both encourage risk-taking…and have grown weary of serving the language apart from each other. Solution? Pair ’em up!
See?! Isn’t that just a beautiful, fun way to repurpose a couple of old clichés? 😆
You can call attention to your inexperience at something by saying you’re “still wet behind the ears” or you’re “still green.” They work suitably enough on their own, but they would make such a nice couple!
Wow! Now there is inexperience to boast about!
OK, one more. Sometimes we want to express bewilderment rather than risk or inexperience, so we say something trite like “I’m up a tree” or “I’m up a creek without a paddle.” Please. We can do better than that. Pair them up and next thing you know…
And that, my friend, is a predicament to write home about! 😯
These three happy marriages, I’m happy to say, happily resulted from my own match-making skills. I’d trot out another such union, but I’m unable to recall it at the moment.
Here’s another one, five hours later:
Have you any double clichés with which to enrich the language?
Did you hear the one about number and plumber? I answered the riddle today!