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

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Oh, that irritates me beyond all reason too. I do see it as part of a wider trend to abandon the past participle for some unaccountable reason. People regularly seem to write things like 'I use to do that...' And particularly in the adjectival form, the -ed ending seems increasingly optional. Poor diction must, I think, have quite a lot to do with this.

But, to be fair with respect to your actual example, I suppose one could make a case for using cliché in its French form, rather than as an Anglicization, in which case you would still have clichés but not clichéd.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

And now, having read the comments, it seems to me that the matter is so far gone that quite a lot of people have been able to interpret your question in completely the opposite way from what I assumed you meant.

My understanding is that (British) English inflects the word cliché to give the adjectival form clichéd and the plural form clichés. This is what I would view as standard. I assumed your question was directed to those (mainly Americans) who use only the form cliché in all situations, even when it is adjectival or plural. But several people seem to have assumed you were asking whether clichéd and clichés were acceptable forms at all.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I know! It's wackier than I suspected! I fear that before I die there will be English-American, American-English translation dictionaries ...

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Ah ... C'est le ton qui fait la musique ;-)

Yes, I was about to type my 412th [insert d] after the word cliché for an HP beta (for multiple writers) when I suddenly thought ... hang on, perhaps this is actually an acceptable usage a la gotten?

Apparently it is, and I agree with you that it is most likely due to diction. Which sounds odd to me as my mouth wants to close off that big open vowel to mark the p.p., but when I do a very bad fake American accent, it is actually harder to get my tongue up to the back of my teeth to make that d.