Harry Potter and a horrible howler: SIMON HEFFER, the scourge of sloppy English, goes to war on the boy wizard - and those oh so vulgar Yanks...

The use of a cliché displays a paucity of original thought. It is easily forgiven in speech: less so in writing. Some of the more obvious ones include: ‘a bolt from the blue’, ‘quintessentially English’, ‘blind as a bat’, ‘spread like wildfire’, ‘done and dusted’, ‘a pack of lies’ and ‘play fast and loose’. But here are a few that may be less obvious...

AGONY and its derivatives such as agonising should be used only in a context that suggests extreme physical or mental suffering. It is hackneyed to talk about ‘the agony of Spurs losing to Manchester United’ or ‘the agonising decision about which chocolate to eat’. It is correct to say that ‘the death of his children caused him agonising grief ’.

Simon Heffer and the illiterate wizard

BOTTOM LINE is a cliché and, like all clichés, should be avoided.

BRILLIANT in its figurative sense, meaning extremely clever or of superlative talent, is a much over-worked adjective. A performer of any description who is described as brilliant almost certainly isn’t. The word should now only be used to describe a bright light.

COUNTRY MILE Popular phrases vie with one another for the prize in idiocy. One well out in front is the phrase ‘he finished ahead of the next horse by a country mile’. No authority that I can find specifies that the mile is any different in length in rural parts from what it is in urban ones. Presumably those who use this ludicrous cliché imagine they are being clever or funny, or possibly both.

DINOSAUR To describe someone with outdated attitudes or opinions as a dinosaur is now a cliché.

FANTASTIC is perhaps less prevalent as a cliché than it was in the Swinging Sixties, but a cliché it remains. There is nothing wrong with using it in its exact sense, to describe something that is the stuff of fantasy.

FIT FOR PURPOSE Avoid it if you wish to say or write something original and penetrating.

HERO If a man who scores a goal is a hero, what term do we reserve to describe one who wins the Victoria Cross? Choose descriptive nouns with care.

ICON and ICONIC This noun and adjective are grotesquely overused to describe almost anyone or anything of even remote celebrity. Aside from existing on a computer screen, an icon is a representation, used in the Eastern Orthodox church, of an important Christian figure. As shorthand for a person or object of supposed significance, it is to be avoided.

IN DEPTH has become a cliché.

KEY has become an adjective overworked to exhaustion in phrases such as ‘he was a key player’ or ‘this is a key policy’. Think of another adjective, such as important, central or essential.

ONGOING is a tiresome and greatly overused word — as in ‘the war is ongoing’, ‘your education is ongoing’, or ‘my illness is ongoing’. In each example ‘is continuing’ or ‘continues’ would be preferable.

PLUNGE was a verb that used to be restricted to describing an activity of divers or swimmers, or to what is done with dishes when they are washed up. Water was inevitably involved. It is now used to describe anything that takes a precipitate fall, such as the prices of stocks and shares, and is therefore becoming a cliché.

RAFT A raft is a rudimentary floating object. It is now used to describe a collection of people or things, presumably from the idea of a raft containing many people. This usage has now become so clichéd as to be meaningless, especially in political contexts — ‘The Chancellor announced a raft of tax cuts’, and so on. Avoid.

ROLL OUT This is a peculiarly silly contemporary cliché. We now hear of five-year plans, new products, or even websites being rolled out —that is to say, put before the public or begun. It is hard to take anyone who uses this phrase as seriously as he would wish.

SEARING Its metaphorical use has become overworked, as in ‘it was a searing experience for both of them’. Unless writing about cooking meat at a high temperature, or cauterising a wound, avoid.

SOAR as a metaphor has become a cliché, as in ‘share prices soared yesterday’. Fine to use when talking about a heaven-bound rocket or a bird of high, swift flight.

SLIPPERY SOUND-ALIKES



ANNEX and ANNEXE The former is the verb, the latter the noun: ‘Hitler moved in to annex Austria’ means he added it to the existing territories of the Third Reich. ‘An annexe was built on to the school’ means that the institution in question added a new building to its existing property.

BAIL OUT and BALE OUT are ripe for confusion. Bail out describes the act of scooping up water in a container and throwing it overboard to stop a boat from sinking. Bail out is also correctly used to describe the provision of financial assistance. But bale out is what RAF types did when their Lancaster bomber was hit by enemy fire.

BATED and BAITED That prime work of modern literature, Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, includes the phrase ‘the whole common room listened with baited breath’. A mousetrap or a fish-hook may be baited; but one’s breath is bated — a contraction of abated — or shortened.

COMPLACENT and COMPLAISANT One who is complacent is satisfied about life or events, and does not easily see the potential for his complacency to be disturbed. One who is complaisant is compliant or eager to please.

COMPLEMENT and COMPLIMENT A complement is a number of people or objects, or something that adds to them. A compliment is what one pays to, for example, an attractive woman or a handsome man; therefore, a charming remark is complimentary. Something that augments something else is complementary, as in a complementary saucer with a cup.

DISCREET and DISCRETE mean two completely different things. Until 20 or 30 years ago, discrete was used only in learned journals. The word means ‘separate’ — ie a discrete service is one distinct or separate from something else. Discreet, on the other hand, means tactful, understated, restrained, lacking in vulgarity. Therefore a discreet service is service carried out without show or ostentation.

WHY I'VE GOTTEN SICK OF DAFT AMERICANISMS ALL RIGHT The usage alright is ubiquitous in America, though educated Americans avoid it as fervently as we should. All right remains all right in Britain. APPEAL Americans may appeal a verdict, or appeal a decision, but in Britain we appeal against them. AUTHORED is now often used instead of written. We on this side of the Atlantic must decide whether we wish to engage in this American habit of making nouns into verbs, or not. Since there appear to be perfectly good existing verbs, I feel we can continue to resist. CHOOSY is the slang term to be preferred to the popular Americanism picky to describe someone who is fastidious or discriminating. DOVE and DIVED Dove, to rhyme with cove, is used in American English as the past participle of the verb dive — as in ‘he dove off the cliff’. In British English, one would say dived. FILL OUT is what Americans do to forms. Britons fill them in. GET In restaurants one may hear people in the early stages of Americanisation asking if they may get a beer, a glass of wine or a plate of spaghetti when they really mean may they have one. In British usage, asking a waiter whether we may get a fillet steak implies that we are seeking permission to go into the kitchen and fetch it ourselves. GOOD used for well. Few Americanisms have registered more strongly in British English in recent years than the vogue for answering the polite question ‘How are you?’ with the rejoinder ‘I’m good.’ To many Anglo-Saxon ears, this still sounds like a profession of one’s moral condition rather than an observation about one’s physical well-being. GOT and GOTTEN Americans say gotten where we say got — not out of perversity, but because at the time of the Pilgrim Fathers we all said it. America has stuck conservatively to this form, and we have not. KNOCK UP is a vulgar Americanism meaning to impregnate. In British English, it used to describe a hammering on a door to wake someone or alert them, or to warm up with bat and ball for a game of cricket. NAMED FOR is an Americanism. In standard British English, one says named after, as in ‘the girl was named Jane after her godmother’. PECKER is American slang for penis. It is therefore unwise for a Briton to advise an American to keep his pecker up. RUN American politicians run for office: in Britain, they stand. START AGAIN and START OVER The former usage is standard English; the latter is American.

IMMANENT and IMMINENT Immanent means inherent or contained within, as in the phrase ‘God is immanent in everything’. Imminent means in the immediate future, as in ‘his arrival was imminent’.

NUMINOUS and LUMINOUS Numinous means sublime or awe-inspiring, and can be applied to anything that evokes the sense of a divinity. It should not be confused with luminous, which means light, or radiating light.

PALATE, PALETTE and PALLET These words have markedly different meanings. One only has to read (as one too frequently does) of a painter mixing colours on a palate to see the problem: painters do not usually mix colours on the roof of their mouth. Palate is how one spells that part of the anatomy. The mixing of paint happens on a palette. A pallet is a straw bed, something goods are stacked on or a piece of armour covering the head.

PROSTATE and PROSTRATE are frequently confused. Prostate is the name of a gland at the neck of the bladder in male mammals. Prostrate is an adjective, meaning lying face down — ‘he was prostrate on the bed’ — and is also a verb – ‘he prostrated himself before the altar’.

RACKED and WRACKED The former usually describes being tortured on the rack, and has acquired a metaphorical sense of describing emotional or psychological distress. The latter describes having undergone wreck, usually shipwreck, and being utterly destroyed and ruined.

