Lately, friends and clients have been asking me what we can do about the growth of cliché and platitude in everyday language — at home, at work, and in the media.
I want to suggest an approach that has generated some very satisfied customer responses from organisations I have visited. Feedback from these Fortune 500 firms frequently shows people are fascinated to learn the fundamentals of formula-free phraseology.
The '12 Evasions' program is as simple as reading a calendar. For each month of the year, nominate a hackneyed phrase, then do everything you can to avoid speaking that phrase — substitute a synonym, discuss a different angle on the issue at hand, talk about a different topic, make turkey noises, or even just go silent.
Once that month is over, you can use the phrase as often as you like, for the rest of your life, because you will be back in control of that phrase. And that's the aim: we have to control our language; not let our language control us.
This program fits particularly well with a 'new year's resolution' format. That means it is best introduced at your end-of-year strategic planning retreat.
Feel free to use the following list of phrases I have developed for 2009 — although naturally I expect payment of a certain consideration for the intellectual property.
January — 'perfect storm'
This was voted the most overused vacuous phrase in the USA for 2007, so clearly there is a need to rein it in. It's not as popular in Australia yet, so it makes a manageable starting phrase for your team's campaign.
February — 'journey'
At a wedding I went to recently, the celebrant was moved to explain that the couple's premarital travels together had been 'like a journey'. Wow! This is a madly, badly overused term.
March — 'singing from the same songsheet'
Contacts in the public service have been shocked by this cliché's meteoric rise in usage. Its metaphoric resonances, however dimly remembered, remind us that what we say should aspire to beauty.
April — 'going forwards'
I know a lot of us will find this phrase a hard one to kick, but by now we have had three months of preparation. It's time to assert our ownership of all those sayings we just don't think about when we say them.
May — 'in terms of'
This is a truly hard-wired product of the linguistic autopilot. If we can remember our commitment to ourselves and our team-mates