The October Talking point will deal with clichés, the various ways they creep into our words, and some methods to remove them from our sales vocabulary. In researching the topic I noticed that most pundits say “stop using clichés”, yet they don’t provide any positive advice about how to accomplish the task. It occurred to me that there must be a way to use all of the technology around us to hunt down and kill clichés. So here is part I of a technology attack on clichés, based upon Microsoft Office.

We all know there is a spell checker in Word, however, did you know there is a style and language check facility too? There is a specific option to check for clichés, colloquialisms and jargon! All you need to do is turn it on, and here is how you do that.

Vista:

1.       Click on the round MS button in the top left and choose “Word Options”.

2.       Select “proofing” from the menu on the left, and then look at the Writing Style under “when correcting spelling and grammar”. Select “Grammar & Style” from the pull-down and hit the Settings button.

3.       You will see a number of checkboxes under the Style heading. The first of these is “clichés..” so turn on the checkbox. Check out the other options for “wordiness” or “split infinitives” too.

Windows XP

1.       Select Tools|Options from the main toolbar menu.

2.       Choose the “Spelling and Grammar” tab

3.       Select “Grammar & Style” from the pull-down and hit the Settings button.

4.       You will see a number of checkboxes under the Style heading. The first of these is “clichés..” so turn on the checkbox. Check out the other options for “wordiness” or “split infinitives” too.

Give it a try!