Improve your language!

Let us look at some definitions of sentences we normally use in our writing.

Epigram:
This is a witty statement that could have a clever twist of thought.
Example: The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

Epigraph:
This is an inscription on a monument or building or a brief quotation placed at the beginning of a book.

Maxim:
This is a principle drawn from experience and normally serves as a rule of conduct. Example: Practice what you preach.

Motto:
A motto is a maxim that is accepted as a guiding principle. Example: Honesty is the best policy.

Aphorism:
This is much the same as the maxim except that aphorisms are generally not anonymous. They are spoken by people and have, over the years, become sentiments or principles.
Example: To err is human.

Now let’s make our writing more colourful and readable. One amongst the several rules we have been talking about, is the use of
clichés. Trite expressions do not help you in your writing. So try and avoid the use of clichés.
Example: He left no stone unturned to find the missing girl.

There are many types of clichés.

Academic clichés for example have words/phrases such as ‘is no exception’, ‘in our society today’, ‘play a role in’, etc.

Then there are poetic clichés like ‘a gentle breeze’; ‘her ruby, red lips’; ‘a golden sunset’; ‘at the crack of dawn’ etc.

There are also fictional clichés such as ‘little did she know that’, ‘beneath his mild-mannered exterior’ etc.

Figures of speech can also be clichés like

the metaphor: ‘on an emotional roller coaster’, ‘pillar of strength’. Or ‘like the simile as cold as ice’, ‘as pure as driven snow’ etc. Or even

hyperboles ‘like starved to death’, ‘cost a fortune’ etc.

(The Deccan Chronicle, School, 12:02:2008)

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