They’re tried-and-true, but they’ve been around the block a few times. They’re shopworn, threadbare, and coming apart at the seams. It’s time to put them out to pasture.

Yep, we’re talking about clichés today: those overused phrases and metaphors that somehow, despite your best efforts, find their way into your writing.

First, what exactly is a cliché? The dictionary definitions run along the lines of “a phrase or expression that has been used so much that it is no longer considered clever or effective.” When everyone uses it, it tends to lose its oomph. And that’s why you should avoid them in your writing: they make your prose (and, by extension, you) look tired, lazy, and unoriginal. If that weren’t enough reason to avoid them, consider (as you always must) your audience: some clichéd expressions are excessively idiomatic, and thus are potentially confusing to non-native speakers. And, some people just hate clichés.

OK, OK. Avoid clichés, check. How do you know if an expression is a cliché? Some clichés (such as the ones in the first paragraph of this blog) are well-used and easy to spot. But at what point does a clever turn of phrase or apt analogy become a cliché? That’s harder to pin down. There’s no hard and fast rule, no line in the sand, no defined point of no return. However, there are some pretty good indicators out there: If it’s on some blogger’s “Top 10 overused phrases” list, or it’s being poked fun of by the likes of “Dilbert,” The Daily Show, or The Onion, it’s probably past its sell-by date.

Now: did you notice something in that last paragraph? In that paragraph alone I dropped – unintentionally! – several expressions that could be termed “clichés.” Clichés have an insidious way of injecting themselves in your prose, whether you want them there or not. Why? Because they’re so easy. They are so ingrained in your vocabulary that you use them without thinking about it. They are so commonly understood, their meanings so instantly recognizable, that it’s hard not to use them. Coming up with a new expression can be hard work, and you’re on deadline. Why spell it out in 20 words when a three-word cliché will do?

The language of business is particularly fraught with clichés, and many of them, for some reason, are sports analogies. It might be useful to use linguistic shortcuts such as “I’ll circle back and touch base with you tomorrow, but we might have to drop back and punt because we aren’t on the same page” – but your audience will tire of it, if they haven’t already. Couple that with the fact that sports analogies are often lost on the many people who don’t follow sports, and you have all the reason you need to leave these phrases behind.

So how do you avoid them? As the late, great James Kilpatrick repeatedly said, “Read your copy! Read your copy! Read your copy again!” To which I would add: Have someone else read it too. Look at it from the perspective of an outsider (specifically, a member of your audience). You (or your helper) will be better able to catch those expressions that might need to be retired. You may not easily be able to eliminate all of them, but if you can spot the more egregious ones, and (better yet) come up with more original ways of saying them, your writing will be that much better off.

By substituting regular, mundane expressions for hackneyed phrases, you will at least achieve the goal of not appearing to be unoriginal and lazy. If you come up with something new instead, all the better. And if someday, something you came up with ends up being so overused that it’s pilloried in The Onion, well, that’s just a feather in your cap. (Sorry…)

Morris Vaughan is a technical writing consultant in Los Angeles, California.