This challenge is produced by GirlieOnTheEdge with the following simple rules:
Write 6 Sentences. No more. No less.
Use the current week’s prompt word – METHOD
Click here to hear the author read his words:
A Heap of Mince
I’m here to discuss aphorisms and adages, epigrams and epithets, maxims and axioms, and various other high-falutin’ words that, if we are honest (a bit of a long shot, admittedly), really just scream CLICHÉ.
For example, I get really peeved with ‘no gain without pain’ (what a crock, I’ve gained lots of stuff without pain, especially back when I was a pick-pocket) and ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’.
This one, with its implication that imminent death is a distinct possibility, always reminds me of the famous last words of General George Custer, viz. Injuns? I don’t see no pesky Injuns (okay, I know that’s unacceptable language, so let me apologise immediately for the great man’s appalling grammar) which, for me at least, significantly reduces its credibility factor.
Is there any method to this madman’s inane rantings and ravings, I hear you ask (or I probably would if we were at least in the same country), so I’ll come right to the point, more or less, because what I’m saying is that we need some new clichés.
So, for starters I suggest ‘Avoid pain, your body doesn’t need it, you cretin’ and ‘Don’t kill yourself, you’ll live longer that way’ and ‘What, chicken soup again?’
Sorry, that last one seems to have slipped in from another piece of drivel wandering around looking for a home but, please, don’t let it distract you from the serious message that I am trying to get across here, which is…ehm… Chicken soup, really?
Cliches are like statsitics – 60% of them are outdated, 25% of them make no sense to neither man nor beast, 15% of them are risible, and the last 10% fell in my chicken soup along with my calculator.
‘statistics’ (spellchecker fell into the soup too) 🙂
It’s okay, no one can spell stasitisicts anyway, because no one knows what they mean.
Love it! Listening to you reading it makes this piece of writing going even more alive!
Thank you so much, Cassa, I am always delighted when someone takes the time to listen as well as reading.
Glad you enjoyed it all.
It’s a pleasure!
Don’t be a walking cliche, dear, might be a good new one, too. Well done!
Absolutely, Mimi, I think there are lots out there!
You’ve really identified the saws of verbal laziness, CE. I think they should re-introduce the death penalty for uttering ‘it is what it is.’ Wit abounds in this piece. I wonder if some old cobblers should get together and open a shoe repair shop called ‘Chicken Soup for the Sole’.
Wit abounds!
No more Chicken soup for you, Doug, you’ve clearly had more than enough already.
At least if the cobblers fixed the sole, the Chicken Soup would be okay to cross the road, yeah?
Only if it wanted to. 🙂
Wait, C.E. I’ll take some of that chicken soup while I try not to sweat the small stuff 😉
I wouldn’t recommend it, Denise, I don’t know where it came from!
According to Stephen Fry, it’s a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue too … or something like that! Nice one Cleshayr.
Nah, I’m not going down that rat-hole, there lies madness!
Cheers, Big Ears
Well said, well read!
Thanks, Chris!
well done, great graphics and sound. Well put together.
Thank you, sir
I think this new cliche is worth becoming a cliche: ‘Don’t kill yourself, you’ll live longer that way’
It does have a wee bit sense to it, Frank!
Well, that most entertaining ‘Heap of Mince’ got me thinking, in particular about my fear that I might do violence to the next person who says, ‘Whit’s fur ye will no go by ye.’
I might replace that with ‘fatalism kills hope’, pehaps?
Another joyful wander through words and ideas, ‘coming right to the point, more or less…’!
And the General George Custer paragraph – nice one.
You could also replace ‘Whit’s fur ye… ‘ with ‘micht as weel stay in bed then’
This is brilliant…well done!
Thank you, Katrin, (or the lady formerly known as Kate!), glad you enjoyed.