Friday, January 20, 2006

Cliché: a pox on both your houses

(also: a plague on both your houses)

Meaning: the same suffering befall everyone involved. Origins and uses.
Rewrite 1: may both of your eyes go blind
Rewrite 2: may you suffer like two cats with tails tied over a clothes line
Rewrite 3: an illness overcome you all
Rewrite 4: you’ve drunk from the same cup, may you suffer the same fate

Comment: It’s been quoted numerous times recently on news programs covering the
Jack Abramoff scandal to describe public opinion on whether the scandal is a bigger problem for Republicans or Democrats.

More reading about clichés
What I found when I
googled “clichés”:
I Support Meaningless Jingoistic Cliches: White House parody gift shop.

Check out the new
alphabetical list of all my cliché rewrites available in the archive list at the right. To search the page using Internet Explorer, just go to “Edit” in the top menu bar, select “Find”, then enter the cliché or a word from it.

No comments: