Image: ©Figures of Speech – reuse only with a link to this page. The tree is around 80 years old and consists of two trunks with some other species embedded in the cluster – a characteristic grouping for the uncultivated aspen. The solitary European aspen ( Populus tremula) which will be the source of most of the aspen images in this article, here taken in early summer. A similar phrase has established itself in French, too: trembler comme une feuille. When did you last see a leaf 'tremble', for example? Trembling 'like a leaf' is a very poor example of trembling. Some phrases are not only irritating because of their lack of connection with modern life but also because they are often not very good similes in themselves. Our modern, quickfire verbal lifestyle, particularly in social media, brings new sticky clichés a-plenty, but the old stuff still soldiers on(!). Such pedantry may keep us grumblers warm at nights, but it doesn't really matter, for we all 'know what they mean' with these now hackneyed(!) phrases.Īs shown in those two examples, these pieces of linguistic chewing gum often got stuck on the language long ago, in very different times, well before the various technological and social revolutions that have swept over us. We can safely assume that the number of their readers who are familiar with this manoeuvre in a horse-drawn carriage or whilst riding shotgun on some Wells Fargo stagecoach is probably zero.įor those who missed out on the romance of the Wild West in their childhoods there is always the trusty nautical alternative 'taking the helm', which pleases Hornblower readers everywhere. Even today, journalists write on their 21st-century devices, without a blush, that a new CEO is about to 'take over the reins' at a company. Clichés stick onto language like chewing gum onto pavements or shoes.
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