Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Monday, December 29, 2008
Phraselet No. 97
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8 comments:
One of the best. I wonder when "dead as a doornail" came into popular usage.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Dickens has some great turns of phrase. I particularly like the British humor in this one.
It's nice to be reminded, in Dickens and Twain, that ours is not the first age in which sensitive writers have poked fun at cliches and catchphrases.
Sorry for the late reply, Peter. I've been travelling and my internet access was spotty. Cliche is so deadly to a writer, especially one trying for a popular audience, since he can fall into it all the more easily. I've been paging through the second in a series, and there's a humdinger on every other page.
I wonder who was the first writer ever to make fun of cliches. Twain and Dickens appear both to poke fun at cliches and to recognize that they can be useful,
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Sounds like a good academic study -- one that might actually be useful!
Another way of putting the question: How long did mass media exist before writers started noticing clches? Even before that, of course, writers complained. But what is the first recorded complaint or joke about a cliche?
Well, this is interesting ...
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