As the US presidential election enters its final month, two phrases are making me cringe because they've been so dreadfully overused.
"A heartbeat away from the presidency." Okay... it's a clever expression, but I'm guessing Barack Obama and Sarah Palin were probably both in diapers when it was coined. Nevertheless, candidates, journalists, pundits, and spin doctors all spit it out when they discuss the vice-presidency.
Can we come up with something new?
The other phrase that's been clogging the media, ever since America's economic meltdown began a couple of weeks ago is "Main Street." The behavior of Wall Street is affecting people on Main Street, blah, blah, blah....
Where the hell is Main Street? Seattle, where I live, has a Main Street, but it's not very main. It slices through the southern fringe of downtown, and is non-existant in certain blocks, cannibalized by Interstate 5, other more significant thoroughfares, and a park or two. It's not the kind of place people live or shop, I don't think. I'm not sure I've ever been there.
"Main Street" has become as trite a cliche as the "heartland." Where is America's "heartland?" I always thought it was in the center of the country -- the central Midwest. People putting a positive spin on America's smalltown midsection call it the "heartland." People putting a less positive spin on it have been know to refer to it as "flyover land," as in, people traveling from coast to coast just fly over it.
But at last night's VP debate, Sarah Palin claimed she had a strong connection to the "heartland."
Alaska?
Oh, now settle down... before you start spouting other temporary cliches about Sarah Palin. She said you can see Russia from Alaska, which, it turns out, is true -- from one isolated outpost. After Palin made that remark in an attempt to defend her foreign policy experience, somebody -- I have no idea who -- quipped that he or she could see the moon from their house and therefore had space travel experience. Okay, that's kind of funny. But I've now heard or read numerous people use the expression as if they thought of it first.
I'm getting impatient about the presidential election. I think we need a new rule: As soon as our airwaves and newspapers (and Internet counterparts) become saturated with trite phrases that make us gag, it is time to vote.
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