Although your entry would make for an additional recasting of the original cliche, it wouldn't replace the rewrite I did. "Dead as a casket" parallels the original form. As an inanimate object, a casket is indeed dead, so it works.
Consider this: You can be in a casket and not be dead. So while your suggestion may work on a surface level, it doesn't carry the metaphorical weight of an inanimate object like the casket itself, which is by its very nature non-living or dead.
Hi Tanya, glad you like the blog. I really have to get back to adding content. Thanks for the comment!
1:55 PM
Meaning: dead like an inanimate object Rewrite 1: dead as a paperweight Rewrite 2: dead as a drill bit Rewrite 3: dead as a casket Rewrite 4: alive as an icecycle
Comment: The first two rewrites courtesy of John Shoemaker, a writer and editor in the Greater New York City Area via LinkedIn, the professional networking site, with permission.
John was one of several who responded to a question I posed on LinkedIn, “Do clichés bother you?” Most who answered were very tolerant of clichés and those who use them. Most responders were writers or editors or both. None thought using clichés were the best first option of a writer, but most thought there was a place for using clichés.
What I have attempted to show in this Web log is that as writers and editors we are all better off avoiding clichés, although it is certain there are times when we can’t avoid them or when using them can be an advantage. Better is learning to rewrite or recast the original idea, which I do in each case by example. I think my colleagues agree in principle with that. In that case, the advantage is usually yours.
Check out the searchable alphabetical list of my cliché rewrites with the archive list at the right.
posted by Booksville Bookclub at 9:00 AM on Mar 1, 2008
4 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formdead as IN a casket
8:14 AM
Hi "anonymous," thanks for commenting.
Although your entry would make for an additional recasting of the original cliche, it wouldn't replace the rewrite I did. "Dead as a casket" parallels the original form. As an inanimate object, a casket is indeed dead, so it works.
Consider this: You can be in a casket and not be dead. So while your suggestion may work on a surface level, it doesn't carry the metaphorical weight of an inanimate object like the casket itself, which is by its very nature non-living or dead.
Good try, though!
11:01 AM
Wow!! I just discovered your blog and love it!
7:48 AM
Hi Tanya, glad you like the blog. I really have to get back to adding content. Thanks for the comment!
1:55 PM