The NZ Listener‘s Toby Manhire makes an important announcement regarding the writer’s hazard: Occupational Overuse Syndrome (which I try to avoid — in fact, I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot barge pole — despite being (ahem) cited in the article. 😉
Click to read ‘John Key’s honeymoon is over, and over again’ at the NZ Listener website
@listenerlive Fair cop guv’nor.cc @toby_etc
— Peter Aranyi (@onThePaepae) April 11, 2013
– P
Read John Key’s honeymoon is over, and over again by Toby Manhire.
(Apologies to William Safire, of course.)
You mean clichés like.
“Avoiding them like the Plague.”
See William Safire’s rule 17.
http://grammar.about.com/od/writersonwriting/a/safirerules.htm
18. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
19. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth
shaking ideas.
20. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
21. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate
quotations. Tell me what you know.”
22. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
23. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
24.One should NEVER generalize.
25. Who needs rhetorical questions?
26. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
Fabulous! Thanks for sharing. – P
(I tidied up your numbering.)
Update; Just saw this on Twitter:
“A bad simile is like a yellow shoe.”
https://twitter.com/MooseAllain/status/327072657679982592