海角大神

鈥淪he鈥檚 got a heart of gold.鈥� 鈥淗e鈥檚 like a kid in a candy store.鈥� These are 肠濒颈肠丑茅蝉, which Merriam-Webster defines as 鈥渁 trite phrase or expression鈥� or 鈥渁 hackneyed theme, characterization, or situation.鈥� Writing last week about snowclones, which take 肠濒颈肠丑茅蝉 and make them fun again, I found myself wondering two things: Where does 肠濒颈肠丑茅 come from, and what鈥檚 the proper way to deal with that accent mark?

The accent aigu (鈥渁cute accent鈥�) on the 鈥渆鈥� indicates that 肠濒颈肠丑茅 comes originally from French. Given that the word has been 鈥渘aturalized鈥� in English since at least 1817, though, it can also be spelled cliche. Robert Hartwell Fiske, author of the Dictionary of Unendurable English and a stickler of the highest order, explains that 鈥渋t is preferable with the accent鈥� but won鈥檛 cause confusion without it, unlike a word such as 别虫辫辞蝉茅, which needs the mark to distinguish it from expose. 颁濒颈肠丑茅 is a noun and its adjective form has traditionally been 肠濒颈肠丑茅d, though today 肠濒颈肠丑茅 itself is often used as an adjective too. So it is not incorrect to say things like 鈥淭hat poster of Klimt鈥檚 鈥楾he Kiss鈥� on your dorm wall is 肠濒颈肠丑茅.鈥�

Etymologically, it鈥檚 one of a surprising number of words that English acquired from printers鈥� jargon. 聽

Johannes Gutenberg brought movable type to the Western world around 1450. People had previously copied books by hand, or, occasionally, used wooden blocks to print them. A separate block had to be carved for each page, however, and being soft, they wore out quickly. Gutenberg cast individual letters in metal, and developed a system of 鈥渇ormes鈥� that could hold the letters in lines. When one page was done, the printer could rearrange the letters and print something else, making books quicker and cheaper to produce, and more legible.聽

By the late 18th century, printers had noticed that some words and phrases came up frequently. They also realized they were having to reprint some popular books. For these, they made the equivalent of the old woodblocks, cast out of metal, so the pages didn鈥檛 have to be reset every time. To 18th-century French printers this casting process apparently made a noise that sounded like 鈥渃licher,鈥� and so they called the plates thus produced 肠濒颈肠丑茅蝉. Given that their purpose was to make large numbers of identical copies easily and cheaply, it is not surprising that by 1881, 肠濒颈肠丑茅 had migrated into English as a way to refer to words and phrases that had become trite through overuse, and by 1895 was being applied to unoriginal or predictable people and things.聽

These plates had another name in English, too. They were stereotypes, which we鈥檒l get to next week.聽 聽 聽