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In Praise of Clich茅s

Trawling through the archive and with a select panel of guests, Steve Punt asks if it鈥檚 time to stop rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and rehabilitate the humble clich茅

Whether it鈥檚 author Martin Amis declaring war on overused stock phrases or annual surveys of the well-worn expressions we love to hate - at the end of the day, the fact of the matter is, people have very strong feelings about clich茅s.

From politics to TV drama, sporting clich茅s to toe-curling corporate jargon, Steve Punt drills down into the archive to discover why so many of us have been singing from the same hymn sheet.

As he traces clich茅 origin stories and listens to the sound of some new ones being hatched, Steve is joined by storytelling expert John Yorke, parliamentary sketch-writer Madeline Grant and author of a whole book about footballing clich茅s, Adam Hurrey. Navigating a linguistic minefield where conventions must be separated from tropes, platitudes from pontification, Steve runs it up the flagpole to ask if it鈥檚 time to stop rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, attempt some blue-sky thinking and rehabilitate the humble clich茅.

It could, he says 鈥渂e a game-changer.鈥

Producer: Conor Garrett

Available now

57 minutes

Last on

Sat 6 Aug 2022 20:00

Broadcast

  • Sat 6 Aug 2022 20:00