2/04/2011

A cliché by any other name is still a cliché.



   Watching the sun rise this morning, coffee in hand, the sky really is a rose gray .  Like the color gray  of a mourning dove.  Rosy gray.  ….”the rosy fingers of dawn”…..Actually, we are going to have a foggy morning here in SW Florida – typical of late winter.  The sun will burn through by mid-morning. 


As I write the above, I can see my old English Prof hovering above me, red pen in hand.  He hated, hated, hated clichés.  Rhetoric 101 is where I realized how much of my speech was littered with clichés and proverbs.  I’m a late bloomer.  By the time I was sitting in Rhetoric 101, I was already a grandmother.  So – as the cliché says – better late than never! 

Was it the author Taylor Caldwell who wrote about some southern characters whose speech is cluttered with all those old proverbs?  When I read that short story I thought “Gad! Those women sound just like me”  I’d sure hate to have to listen to me for very long. 

4 comments:

  1. Good thoughts, and the photo goes so well with them!

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  2. I don't know if it was Taylor Caldwell because I have never read any of her short stories although I love her novels. Another good author that writes characters with a great deal of southern slang, etc. is Fanny Flagg. Her books are great. Glad I found your blog.

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  3. they are cliches because they are TRUE and it is the rosy fingers of dawn. beautiful shot. I am southern to the bone

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  4. Vicki;

    Thanks for stopping by my blog. I'm kinda new at this and just learned how to respond to your comments.

    Do I understand your dog is a therapy dog? They are such a blessing. My partner's brother has suffered a massive stroke, yet he knows when the son brings his little dog to the nursing home. Even though W. can't talk anymore, he pats the little dog with a withered, wobbly hand.

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