Via The Independent, Robert Fisk brings up points that all webwriters should heed: Tanks roll and guns fall silent, but the clichés go on for ever. Excerpt (but read the whole article):
In real life, do we really call borders "porous" – even when, like the Durand line which divides Afghanistan from present-day Pakistan, few of the people living on the frontier believe it's real?
In ordinary conversation, do ever refer to "iconic" or "defining moments", even though speech-writers like to sprinkle them around the lexicon of third-rate politicians?
Indeed, politics provides some of our most woeful clichés. Presidents and prime ministers like to demonstrate "soft power" – a descendant of the old "hitting above our weight" – when they are not on the "campaign trail".
I have a special "AAAAAGH" for "campaign trail". It was presumably coined in the United States (the "trail" being a giveaway) but it now applies to any election anywhere on earth. MPs or US senators or French presidents are always "fighting for their political life", their arguments often "compelling". Which means what, exactly?
Every newly inaugurated American president since Truman, it appears, has "hit the ground running".
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