Cliché: lock, stock, and barrel

(Entered for Nov. 11, 2005. I entered this at 11:30 pm EST on 11.11.05!)

Meaning: the whole thing. Use examples.
Rewrite 1: cup, saucer, and spoon
Rewrite 2: spoon, fork, and knife
Rewrite 3: trunk, branches, and leaves
Rewrite 4: bulb, lamp, and shade
Rewrite 5: the whole gun, including the trigger

Comment: There are lots of possibilities, but you have to be selective when naming the parts. For instance, in rewrite 4, there are other parts of a lamp, but the ones that seem to connect everything into a single whole are the bulbⁿ³, the lamp itself, and the lampshade. And you don’t want to go overboardⁱ in naming parts. Three parts seems like plenty, and citing more than three becomes laborious.

More reading about clichés
What I found when I googled “clichés”:
• Movie Clichés: It’s as its title describes. And Movie Clichés: From Harris Online. And Film Clichés: “A funny list of movie clichés.”