Chris Pash's Blog, page 14
June 27, 2010
Cliche of the Week 5 – Sick as a parrot
THE football team's future hangs by a thread as an anxious nation waits to see if pride will be restored.
Individual players look sick as a parrot as they squander their chances and suffer a bitter blow when injury ditches them from the team.
The World Cup coverage turns on the style with bountiful cliches.
Sick as a parrot was apparently popular in the 1970s. Today it appears to be used most by British media to describe disappointment.
Difficult to pick a single cliche from coverage of the...
June 20, 2010
Cliche of the Week 4 – Working Families
Working families receive such widespread political attention they soon will have the world's highest happiness and wealth allocation.
Use of the phrase in Australia has risen since May with about 100 mentions in the media each week, about double the rate for the past two years.
Read the full report in The Australian newspaper
June 13, 2010
Cliche of the Week 3 – Shallow Grave
Bodies are so often found in a shallow grave that if one is ever found in a deep hole this fact surely will be the stuff of headlines.
This cliché, a standard from the crime reporter's breathless word list, is rarely followed by a definition of the depth of the hole.
In April this year, a 12-year-old girl in Jamaica dug herself from where her would-be killer buried her after thinking he had strangled her to death. No mention on the size of the hole but it must have been shallow enough.
A...
June 7, 2010
Gripping cliches
Everyone has their pet hates when it comes to cliches.
Journalists love talking about cliches and they know the difficulties of avoiding them but can't resist them.
Read this report in The Australian
Even when you coin a clever new phrase, you are likely to be a victim of your own success, because it will get used to death.
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June 6, 2010
Cliche of the Week 2 – CUT TO THE CHASE
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd executed a high-wire double cliche sentence : "But the bottom line is, the measures, at the end of the day, were not sufficient, and let's just be frank about that."
But recently he more often says cut to the chase as a verbal marker when he is about to get to the point.
Read the full report in The Australian newspaper. And see the video clip here
Cliche of the Week – CUT TO THE CHASE
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd executed a high-wire double cliche sentence : "But the bottom line is, the measures, at the end of the day, were not sufficient, and let's just be frank about that."
But recently he more often says cut to the chase as a verbal marker when he is about to get to the point.
Read the full report in The Australian newspaper. And see the video clip here
June 3, 2010
Cliche of the Week 1 – A Perfect Storm
A perfect storm, a vivid description for a one-in-100-year weather event, is now used by reporters as a label for any impending disaster caused by a series of seemingly unconnected dangers or stuff-ups.
Read about the Cliche of the week in The Australian newspaper.
And watch the video clip.
Cliche of the Week – A Perfect Storm
A perfect storm, a vivid description for a one-in-100-year weather event, is now used by reporters as a label for any impending disaster caused by a series of seemingly unconnected dangers or stuff-ups.
Read about the Cliche of the week in The Australian newspaper.
And watch the video clip.
Going forward, at the end of the day
Geoff Elliott, media editor of The Australian newspaper, and word miner Chris Pash discuss the world's biggest newsroom cliches
'Word miner' Chris Pash and Geoff Elliott, Media Editor of The Australian newspaper, in conversation about the world's biggest news cliches.
Journalists must never again write the words 'at the end of the day'.
"I suspect at this point in history it is the most popular cliche in journalism globally," Chris Pash says. "It is all-pervasive." Watch the video clip here
...
March 19, 2010
Jon Doust: Miles Franklin Long List
Congratulations to Jon Doust whose book Boy on a Wire has been long listed for the 2010 Miles Franklin award. Jon was the MC at the Launch of my book The Last Whale.
Doust's story, based on his experiences in a 1960s boarding school, was listed alongside 12 other books including Jasper Jones by fellow WA author Craig Silvey.
Doust said it felt "odd and strange" to have Boy on a Wire included on the Miles Franklin Award long list.
"At first I laughed, because I thought the long list would be...
