Call them cliches or just hackneyed “radiospeak.” Or maybe they’re just crutch phrases. We hear them all the time on the radio, especially when air talent get a little stuck. A “go-to” phrase can be an easy way out.
It can also be annoying to listeners, while doing nothing to create an interesting, attention-getting environment.
It turns out this is part of a bigger syndrome in corporate world, with an apropos name:
Garbage language
That phrase was coined by author Anna Weiner. And it is synonymous with a form of empty language you often hear in boardrooms, often accompanied by more talk and less action.
“Put in a pin in that one.”
“This is a tough one to unpack.”
“What are the deliverables for this project?”
“Let’s discuss this off-line.”
It goes on and on. In fact, garbage language keeps being invented. As Molly Young points out in a great piece in Vulture, once we hear a new catch-phrase, it’s in us.
She points out these empty cliches end up impeding communication. And more and more, we just tune them out. They are roundabout ways of communicating things that are unproductive and vacuous.
And that’s true on the radio as well. Most of the time, talent isn’t even aware of the frequent “isms” they use. That what PD’s are supposed to do – point them out and eradicate them. Because whether we’re listening to a talk host or music jocks, chances are good we’re hearing the same crutch language again and again.
On the air (and in normal speech), there are natural crutch words – like “like,” “you know,” and even “uh.” They slip out when we momentarily forget where we’re going.
And then there are the phrases used again and again, like the ones in the illustration at the top of this post. It’s not that they’re harmful – they’re simply ignored, tuned out, and fall on deaf ears. They also don’t sound like how real people talk:
Radio folks: When you say things like “at the top of the seven o’clock hour” you literally sound like you’re speaking in tongues.
Just say “at seven o’clock.” Speak like a normal person speaks.
🧠
— DJ Chris Cruise (@ChrisCruise) March 3, 2020
Like “Action News” or “Eyewitness News” – the way so many news teams describe their product – they become invisible after a while. And the ubiquity of “Breaking News” often causes us to question whether stories are truly fresh or hyped us to make us think so.
You hear them and see them so much, they lose whatever impact they might have had. That’s what cliches do, and why we subconsciously tune out when athletes are interviewed and say things like “We’re taking it one game at a time” or “As long as we play our game” or “I’m giving 110%.” The oft-repeated phrases become “garbage language.”
I’ve even noticed while watching “Jeopardy” how the unflappable Alex Trebek often concludes his contestant interviews with “Good for you,” a crutch line he uses frequently as an exit ramp for these short tête-à-têtes.
That’s why its important for air talent to self-police their breaks and talk segments – or better yet, ask for trained outside ears to help them identify these annoying potholes that make their content sound artificial or forced. When you think of some of the best personalities you’ve heard over the years, chances are good they don’t crutch out – instead, they always sound fresh and relevant.
If it’ll make radio people feel better, rest assured it’s just as bad in podcasting. Our dear friend, Eric Nuzum, is now attending a podcasting conference where he’s steeling himself to face the barrage of cliches and overused buzzwords.
Aside from providing podcasters, would-be podcasters, and especially those seeking to cash in on this still-fledgling medium great ideas, Eric offers up some great advice. Here’s my favorite quote from his story that recently appeared in Medium:
While you can derive much knowledge about the podcasting arena from Eric’s wisdom and experience at NPR, Audible, and other trial-by-fire situations, his suggesting about how to pass the time at this conference says it all about our world of occupational cliches.
Yes, it’s his version of “Podcasting Bingo” – and he’s compiled a likely list of trigger words that will lead you to a big win. Among them:
Multi-platform
Seed funding
Dynamic insertion
Measurement
Metrics
Discovery
Bubble
Monetize
Storytelling
And yes, it’s not just possible but ever-so-likely multiple terms will end up in the same comment.
At last summer’s “Portland Pop-Up” put on by Phil Becker’s capable team from Alpha Media strategically placed air horns blared any time a guest speaker uttered one of these frequent radio, media, or tech-isms. It brought attention to the syndrome, forcing speakers and presenters (yes, myself included) to speak in clear terms. Like the way people talk.
Every industry needs its own shorthand and acronyms – a customized language in which a word or two summarizes a situation or condition. But whether it’s that DJ crutching out on meaningless time checks, a CEO playing shell games on investor calls, or podcasters bloviating about whatever is this year’s next big things.
Maybe we should take some inspiration from Eric Nuzum and turn some of these radio crutch phrases into a drinking game. It might help set occasions, encourage time spent listening, and actually be fun.
But it sure wouldn’t make for great radio.
The problem with “garbage language” is that it can become habitual. How often have you heard a friend or someone on TV use a phrase, and you begin to hear yourself incorporating it in your own speech?
As Vulture writer Molly Young tells us, “Once you hear a word, it’s ‘in’ you. It has penetrated your ears and entered your brain, from which it can’t be selectively removed.”
The good news, I suppose, is that these cliches aren’t a radio thing – they’re everywhere. But the less we use them and the more we talk like real people, we make meaningful connections with fans.
“100%,” right?
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Now I don’t want to go back and review my “glory days” airchecks anymore. Cringe City…
That’s how we learn, painful as it may be. Thanks, Alan.
Here are some of my favorite sagacities relative to this worthy subject.
It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. ~ Robert Southey
Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune, whose words do jarre,
nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is preposterous. ~ Ben Jonson (ca. 1640)
I confess (and I believe most people are of my mind) that if a speaker should ungracefully mutter or stammer out to me the sense of an angel, deformed by barbarism and solecisms, or larded with vulgarisms, he should never speak to me a second time, if I could help it. ~ Lord Chesterfield, 1749
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact. ~ George Eliot
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech. ~ Martin Farquhar Tupper
Never miss a good chance to shut up. ~ Will Rogers
Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking. ~ John Maynard Keynes
If you can’t express your idea without buzzwords, there may not be an idea there at all. ~ Michael Travis
If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself. ~ Albert Einstein
The real reason for good usage in writing is that if you do not achieve it, your educated reader will be thinking of you, not of the point you’re trying to make. ~ J.W. Velz
The road to hell is paved with adverbs. ~ Stephen King
Cheers!
Good ones!
At my first radio job, their was a sign on the wall across from where the jock sat with a drawing of a crutch with a red circle and slash through it. “No crutches”. ie. don’t say the time if it’s not morning drive, etc. It was a good lesson for me in being more thoughtful about what I was going to say.
Also, I hate when announcers add the year to greetings, such as “Merry Christmas 2019!” or “It’s Labor Day 2019!” Duh! I know what year it is!!!
That was a smart PD. Thanks, Caroline.
The worst one, in radio or any media, is “we’ll be right back.” Oh, they’re leaving, no reason to stay. To the ‘smart’ listener, it obviously means… I’m going to play endless commercials now so go listen to something else. I hear this constantly, by hosts on TV and radio in big markets and I just want to slap them. It’s amazing how many successful hosts have no idea how to front sell and instead use the ‘be right back’ crutch.
I remember Lee Abrams least favorite was “stick around.” heh
Not to mention (“you may as well turn the radio off now because) I’m out here!”
I am sure it has happened to others, but some years back, Harry Covert (“Mark McKay”) at the former WHMP-FM Springfield MA went into auto-pilot during a break and accidentally combined, “stick around” with “keep it right here.”
The result was anatomically hilarious.
I used to have a “good” crutch going into stopsets. Whatever my last sentence’s content was, I always phrased it so I could end with the calls/branding. While it might have sounded a bit repetitive, at least it kept me from falling back on clichés and the listeners were used to hearing the calls/branding all throughout the hour anyway.
“A 45-minute power play, next on X-97!”
I am also reminded of a PD I worked with (who shall remain nameless because he is a programming executive at one of the multi-market players now) whose crutch was, EVERY TIME HE CRACKED THE MIKE, to start his rap with “(frequency), (branding), (main station positioner) … Hi, I’m (name) …”
Once, I had to take over his show, midway through, without any announcement beforehand. (I’ll tell you the story privately if you want, Fred.) The first rap I did started “(frequency), (branding), (main station positioner) … Hi, I’m NOT (name) …”
Unfortunately, the joke sailed right over his head and didn’t cure his behavior.
This whole column brought it right back in my mind as if it were yesterday. Perhaps we need to have more PD-to-talent critique sessions, as we used to “back in the day”.
Good take on my post, KM. And I enjoyed the story. (And now I’m trying to guess who that exec is!)
How about “42 degrees on the outside”……or “DJ Knucklehead in the night time”. Really, it’s dark outside, I think I know it’s night time. lol
We could go on and on…..
Thanks for filling these in, Jay.
Thanks for igniting another important conversation, Fred. Here’s what I’ve found to be the antidote to catch phrases, clichés, and vacuous talk on the radio. Keen and specific interest, real curiosity, passion, knowledge, and understanding about the subject of the talk or conversation. Catchphrases and clichés melt away or are obscured by truly distinctive, interesting, meaningful, memorable, and fun talk and conversations.
Sounds good to me, Bill. Thanks for engaging on this.
Great one, Fred! One of my very favorite subjects. Real people don’t “round out the hour”. Nor do they introduce the time or temperature, or worse, claim currency or ownership….”Our current (time or temperature) is…” Often heard on classical music stations, “Next we have music of (composer)”. Really? Music. Not philosophy or stand-up? And how about that hip and cool disc jockey shorthand where conversational sentences are non-existent. (Actually I’m afraid we all learned some of that from voicing local spots that were cut-and-pasted from yellow pages ads.) There oughtta be a law! Where can I get that No Crutches sign. . . .
Based on the response to this post, I’m thinking we could make a few bucks selling those sings. Thanks, Uncle Lalo, for chiming in.
Wow, looks like I’m odd man out here. I won’t go so far as to say “100% WRONG.” But I think I’d go with “50%.”
Granted, the days of the larger-than-life deejays I grew up on are past, but I never heard any of these fun, talented announcers who kept you glued to your radio say any of these typical “crutch phrases” that bothered me in the least. Of COURSE, nobody says, “75 degrees downtown, look for a high of 80 at the beaches, 90 for the valleys” in REAL life. But it worked for them. They were (and still could be, if done right) great entertainers. A deejay saying “Clapton kicking off another set on your Friday night” or “The music of Beethoven as we continue on Classical 88.3” just doesn’t phase me a bit, no matter how much I already realize it’s a Friday night or that Beethoven composed music!
Contrast that with the “new normal.” The major rock station in my town has apparently told the deejays to always say “something” about anything. We end up with very unnatural, disjointed breaks where the deejay tells you a new fruit flavor will be coming out for Lifesavers–and then goes right into break without saying anything else after telling me this or that piece of meaningless trivia.
I’ll get off my soapbox with this final thought. Think of the biggest, most popular deejays of the past. I’ll bet to a person they all used these so-called”crutch phrases” regularly–and you didn’t care (or maybe even notice) and you loved them all and still remember them. I guarantee I don’t even know the name of the person who made the awkward, out of place comment about Lifesavers before their equally awkward transition into a break. (In fact, that’s all I DO remember about these breaks–how forced and unnatural they sound.)
Maybe, just maybe deejays SHOULDN’T just sound like anyone else you can hear anywhere else. The ones I remember best sure didn’t.
I think I just raised my “50%” disagreement to 75!
Thanks for letting me vent a little and have my say, Fred! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m heading for the beach where I just heard the high is supposed to be 80!
Dave, these are great points, and a valuable perspective. I think part of the issue is that the originals who coined many of these phrases (that at one time were clever – think “Eyewitness News”) had their style poached by thousands of wannabes who started emulating them, rather than coming up with their own styles. Yes, a “Twin Spin” sounds better than “Here’s a pair from Foreigner.” But so often, jocks fall into the trap of crutching out on these phrases, rather than come up with brilliance of their own. (Did I get your back down to 50?)
Haha. Oh, Fred. I don’t think I could ever stay more than a 50 percent disagreement level with you!
A very big time radio station that reaches millions of people has a ridiculous habit of saying “when we come back”. Really ? Where ya going? I had it beaten into my brain to NEVER leave the listener alone. “Up Next”.. or “in 10 minutes” – better yet, “how’d you like to find out the silly ways people are avoiding the Corona virus? I’ve got 5 ways coming right up”. It just makes more sense than saying see ya later, I’ll be down the hall powdering my nose-which is “when we come back” in different terms. Thanks for letting me say that!!
Dave, you always have a soap box here. Thanks for reading our blog & engaging.
Dave,
Really, it comes down to prep. If you’ve prepped your show and know where you are going and how to get there, it’s more than half the battle. Lazy? No prep? The crutches come out and you’re off to hobblin’.
I have a few of these!
https://youtu.be/VIdSKigiNUw
Add to the cliche list “Weaponize”
Ooh, good one. I’ll put a pin in that.