In a remarkably sane post about new words, editor John McIntyre of the Baltimore Sun offers the following bit of wordly wisdom:
[T]he point is not whether a dictionary has conferred legitimacy on [a] word; the point is whether the word is comprehensible and appropriate in context.
Exactly.
This applies to cliched speech, as well. In the Globe and Mail op-ed piece that I mentioned in my previous post, the writer objects to phrases such as push the envelope, think out of the box, low-lying fruit, get your ducks in a row, and going forward. She instructs us, upon hearing such phrases, to "take a bold step forward and politely demand clarity." However, with the possible exception of low-lying fruit (the variation low-hanging fruit is much more common), all of these phrases are perfectly comprehensible. If someone tells you about "the guy who pushed the envelope while thinking out of the box," you might think "Dude, get some new vocabulary," but you'd know what the person was talking about.