More Clichés: Let’s Get our Ducks in a Row!

We lawyers are not alone in our use of clichés. Clichés seem to have infiltrated most professions. Police fear the word now and jazz it up to at this point in time and their investigations are always ongoing. In the business world, all job applicants are innovative, results-oriented, dynamic team players with a proven track record. Once those team players are hired, they are at the mercy of human resources departments that are always magnanimously reaching out to someone or, less magnanimously, downsizing or reallocating resources. The business world is relentlessly proactive and cheerily focused on optimizing results and utilizing resources. In those hallowed halls of business, someone always wants to dialogue, to circle back, or to get face time. There are matrices to build and paradigm shifts to navigate. To be a valued employee, you must row in the same direction, hit the ground running, and get your ducks in a row. And once your ducks are in a row, you must be on your game so that you can run a smell test to discern when someone has put lipstick on a pig.

If your husbandry skills are lacking, you can always leave the business world for academia where students must demonstrate competency or proficiency and avoid risky behaviors. But educators are ready to help by providing support services, by nurturing life-long learners, and by encouraging emerging readers. (But I do admire the optimism!) And when those emerging readers finish emerging, they can learn about books from literary critics, who always seem to find the books that are translucent, gripping, haunting, riveting, compelling, lyrical and evocative.

Admittedly, some professional clichés serve a real purpose in spoken language. They are picturesque or funny and the shared language encourages bonding among enslaved tribes. But clichés don’t belong in our writing because our writing should be slightly more formal than our speech.

So let your writing identify you as a member of the human race, rather than as a member of a particular profession. Now, I’m off to put lipstick on my pig . . . .

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