A farewell to cliche quotes
I came up as a sportswriter. It wasn’t really by design. It’s just that when you’re a young athlete in high school and college, the expectation is that you can write sports and might be a little less handy on stories about topics such as governmental budgets or race relations or basically anything else that doesn’t include a score.
And as a sportswriter, I was subjected to some of the most hackneyed and brutal canned coach quotes every devised.
“We’re just trying to take it one game at a time.”
“We just need to go out and give it 110 percent.”
“We just need to step up and make plays.”
Ugh …
But hackneyed phrasing isn’t the sole province of the sports beat, something I learned when I left sports to become a general news editor. Education, government, military and even cops and court reporters get their share of ridiculous phrases.
One of my all-time least favorite is the popular, “It’s a win-win situation.” First of all, it naturally implies that there are simply two sides to any given story in which the term is used, something that is generally beaten out of you in J-school. Secondly, the quote comes directly from the Department of Redundancy Dept.
That’s why I was so happy when we got a news release announcing the deal between Regional Health and Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Oh, I’m happy that a deal is finally bringing a long-awaited solution to the folks in Spearfish who are covered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield. But actually, I was much more excited that one of the principals was quoted in the release as saying, “With this new contract, Blue Cross and Blue Shield policy holders now have coverage at all the Regional Hospitals, which is a ‘win’ for all concerned.”
Holy Cow! I know it doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal, but it brings a small tear to this former copy editor’s eye.
Yes, small things make me happy.