Hey, Americans ...

[blamebrampton]

Do you ever use forms of cliché other than plain old cliché? Such as clichéd or clichés? I see it used in a manner that I would consider wrong so often that I am wondering if it is one of those wacky idioms that English develops up all around the world. Or it could just be young people today with their emo music and Twittering ...

Comments

[sesheta-66.livejournal.com]

Both sound correct to me, and I may have used either or both myself over the years. I've certainly heard (and seen) them both used frequently, and would never have considered either one of them to be wrong. *shrugs*

It's not limited to the young today, though I'll happily accept the young label if you're offering. ;D Perhaps it's just a North American thing, because it's common in Canada too.

Both forms are listed in the Merriam Webster online dictionary also.

I also checked Oxford, which lists clichéd as the adjective. Since it lists cliché as a noun, it makes sense that clichés would be the plural, no?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the d and s endings are what I would automatically use, yet American writers very often discard the d, and quite often the s, too.

And now I have to work out a rule for why the construction of that paragraph can be read with the reverse meaning in the US. My brain is going to melt one day ...

[sesheta-66.livejournal.com]

I'll be honest ... I read through the comments before adding my own, so I went with how the majority had interpreted it.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Smart Americans and at least one Canadian with good reading skills took it as the opposite of what I thought it naturally read as, so I think there will be an underlying rule here somewhere (and I seem to recall having a similar issue with a sentence in a fic I wrote, but my natural bad memory and recent new head injury due to textbook to head means that I have no idea where ...)

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just the default assumption that they are doing it right, and you are suggesting that some are doing it wrong, and therefore searching for ways others have been wrong to fill in the gaps.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just the default assumption that they are doing it right

Ah ... there's 1914-2008 in a nutshell ...

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Surely that accounts for the bulk of history.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I don't think we can blame the Americans for much of it on the world stage before the early 20th century, though. I thought they restricted themselves to Central America up to that point.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Oh well if we're going to be all reasonable and stuff.

[aliciajd]

I've noticed the dropping of the d and s by writers in the HP fandom, but I just thought it was a misguided attempt at British usage. It looks very wrong when ever I see it. As a 59 year old American with a long-ago degree in English, I would use the d and s in the same manner as you would.

[arcanetrivia]

Do you ever use forms of cliché other than plain old cliché? Such as clichéd or clichés? I [often] see it used in a manner that I would consider wrong

You asked whether Americans used those forms, and then went on to say that you often saw usage you considered wrong. Without further clarification, given that the overall context of an American usage question is usually to point out that American usage can permit some things British considers wrong, the whole construction comes out seeming to say "Americans, do you use these forms? I think they're weird and I wondered if you also did, or if they were correct in AmE." (at least, that's how I read it.)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you are quite right, a paragraph break between those two sentences would be much better. As a broad generalisation, Britglish is more discursive, AmE more debate oriented, a difference I do often forget.