I'd never really thought where the word cliché came from but today I stumbled across its origins.
It seems that in the late 18th/early 19th century printers had a process for producing plates to print illustrations. The picture was carved into a wooden block, then the latter was 'dabbed' into molten metal to leave a cast, which would be a negative version of the illustration.This could then be dabbed into molted metal again to produce a positive plate. The same cast could be used over and over again.
Now it seems that the dabbing action made a noise that French printers fancied sounded like a click - a cliché - and so these casts came to be called clichés. In time the meaning of the word was extended to cover anything that could be used in a mechanical and repetitive manner and eventually acquired its modern sense of a trite and over-used expression.
This story sounds a little like a hoax but I don't think it is. You can read more here
Clichés
I'd never really thought where the word cliché came from but today I stumbled across its origins.
It seems that in the late 18th/early 19th century printers had a process for producing plates to print illustrations. The picture was carved into a wooden block, then the latter was 'dabbed' into molten metal to leave a cast, which would be a negative version of the illustration.This could then be dabbed into molted metal again to produce a positive plate. The same cast could be used over and over again.
Now it seems that the dabbing action made a noise that French printers fancied sounded like a click - a cliché - and so these casts came to be called clichés. In time the meaning of the word was extended to cover anything that could be used in a mechanical and repetitive manner and eventually acquired its modern sense of a trite and over-used expression.
This story sounds a little like a hoax but I don't think it is. You can read more here