Talking in cliches - compile your own list

[DracoM]

Why is it that every speaker on BAL trots through the same cliches / platitudinous critic-speak?

Luminous, radiant, spontaneous, rapt attention to detail, visionary quality, extraordinary - yada-yada-yada......contd p.94.

And over the last few months, because he has been given more time to interview / comment etc on BAL, AMcG is slipping more and more into these Gramophone Mag platitudes too.

Oh, for more David Owen Norris to undercut such piffle.

[Don Petter]

I missed BaL (didn't summon up the will to un-duvet until too late ), but have just switched Helen Wallace off for just the same reasons.

[mercia]

Luminous, radiant, spontaneous, rapt attention to detail, visionary quality, extraordinary

I'd always assumed this was the accepted way of expressing appreciation of performance.
What sort of thing does Mr Norris say ?

[cloughie]

Not necessarily on R3, but sustainable (or un...), literally, and a football one - in the ascendant, or ascendancy. However there seems to have been a climate change on global warming but then that's key to the prevailing situation.

[Petrushka]

I'd always assumed this was the accepted way of expressing appreciation of performance.
What sort of thing does Mr Norris say ?

Perhaps listening to BaL week in week out can lead to jaded palate syndrome in the vocabulary department. When it comes to finding the right words to describe appreciation of performance it's surprising how difficult it is to avoid these cliches.

Let's have some new cliches! (with apologies to Sam Goldwyn).

[mercia]

perhaps some Kennedy-speak would be refreshing on BAL - "wow man, that was like .... wicked"

[Don Petter]

I'd always assumed this was the accepted way of expressing appreciation of performance.
What sort of thing does Mr Norris say ?

Yeah! He tells it like it is, man.

Some of such terms are necessary. It's the piling of one after another to excess which can grate.

[Nick Armstrong]

Yeah! He tells it like it is, man.

Some of such terms are necessary. It's the piling of one after another to excess which can grate.

Completely agree - Norris (and Jeremy Summerly) manage to find a vocabulary that isn't a pile of the clichéd words. But the chap this morning I thought was ok. Haven't listened yet to the string players enthusing...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

perhaps some Kennedy-speak would be refreshing on BAL

"Ich bin ein Berliner Philharmoniker"?

[doversoul1]

I thought Helen Wallace was rather good. She did use some of those words here and there but the rest, she described the performances in fairly solid terms and quite systematically. She sounded as if she knew she was explaining things to an audience rather than pouring out her own response. And I thought she had a good speaking voice with hardly any mannerism. Well, it suited me.

[Nick Armstrong]

"Ich bin ein Berliner Philharmoniker"?

Had a third shredded wheat and extra sugar this morning, ferney?

[Nick Armstrong]

I thought Helen Wallace was rather good. She did use some of those words here and there but the rest, she described the performances in fairly solid terms and quite systematically. She sounded as if she knew she was explaining things to an audience rather than pouring out her own response. And I thought she had a good speaking voice with hardly any mannerism. Well, it suited me.

I'm hoping for a lie in tomorrow and a listen! I'll let you know!

[vinteuil]

I think it's terribly difficult to avoid what will sound like clichés when regularly describing almost anything. In 1992 I helped a friend write a popular travel guide to southern Italy: we spent a happy three weeks driving around the sort of places a half-way adventurous British tourist might be interested in, compiling notes at coffee breaks and lunches and ice-cream breaks and suppers. After a very few days we were running out of adjectives to describe yet another b****y mediaeval hill town - romanesque church - gothic cathedral - fresco - seascape - rustic village. In the end, we designed one of those all-purpose "random generator" thingies, with the right number of adjectives - heart-stopping/plangent/exhilarating/forbidding/sensuous/tender/delapidated/charming/unexpected/inviting - and the right number of nouns cliff-face/turrets/restaurant/architrave/beach/Italians/gelati/apses/caffè/bosoms etc - and from then on, it was a doddle...

[Don Petter]

I thought Helen Wallace was rather good. She did use some of those words here and there but the rest, she described the performances in fairly solid terms and quite systematically. She sounded as if she knew she was explaining things to an audience rather than pouring out her own response. And I thought she had a good speaking voice with hardly any mannerism. Well, it suited me.

She was a bit too gushing for me, in spite of my being very interested in the subject matter. (I may go back on the player and just pick out the musical examples.)

I think it's an extension of not liking the current habit of announcers telling us how absolutely wonderful the piece and performance is, or was - Particularly not needed so much in a review programme, where the excerpts are presumably chosen to let us hear for ourselves.

How much better to just say something like 'Here is a fine new performance of XXX by YYY, though the recording balance is perhaps a little too forward' and letting us make our own judgements. The whole effect is compounded by the dialogue type of presentation, where much time is wasted by the two participants agreeing with each other (or, just occasionally, not).

However, I don't want to sound too grumpy about CD Review, which is still the highlight of the radio week for me.

[Nick Armstrong]

She was a bit too gushing for me, in spite of my being very interested in the subject matter. (I may go back on the player and just pick out the musical examples.)

I think it's an extension of not liking the current habit of announcers telling us how absolutely wonderful the piece and performance is, or was - Particularly not needed so much in a review programme, where the excerpts are presumably chosen to let us hear for ourselves.

How much better to just say something like 'Here is a fine new performance of XXX by YYY, though the recording balance is perhaps a little too forward' and letting us make our own judgements. The whole effect is compounded by the dialogue type of presentation, where much time is wasted by the two participants agreeing with each other (or, just occasionally, not).

However, I don't want to sound too grumpy about CD Review, which is still the highlight of the radio week for me.

to all of that (and vinorosso's previous post too).