By Daniel Fraser

Cliché is the nemesis1 of creativity. This statement pervades2 contemporary attitudes to language， both in the field of literature and in conventional human interactions. Across the landscape of the written word， clichéis continually depicted as an abject3 failure of language. This failure is demonised as obfuscating true expression， offering little more than banal sentimentality，4 and to be avoided at all costs.

As a method of communication， the giving of greeting cards stands in stark contrast to this phobic attitude to cliché， and functions in a manner that throws many of the problems of this phobia into sharp relief.5 Cliché is the life-blood of greeting cards， they thrive on it. Their messages are ones that have been used and discarded over and over again：

Sorry for your loss. Thinking of you. Our deepest sympathies. I love you. Congratulations on finding each other. Best of luck. Happy birthday. Get well soon.

And so on.

The exchanging of these cliché-ridden tokens6 shows no sign of slowing down. Even within the context of the explosive proliferation7 of electronic communication and social media that characterise human forms of connection and conversation today， greeting cards have remained a huge industry. In the United States， approximately 6.5 billion greeting cards are bought each year， and the annual retail sales figures are valued at between $7—8 billion.

Greeting cards present themselves at some of the most important， and often difficult， events of our lives： the loss of a family member or a friend， an outpouring of love and devotion， or even the simple recognition of times passing. The strange thing is that these moments of love and loss are not the place where language finds its truest expression of meaning but are in fact the place where meaning itself starts to break down， where language as a whole reveals its incapacities. The cliché is a marker， or a stand-in8， for something we arent sure how to express. Whether the message is pre-printed or one we resort to writing ourselves， clichés appear where words fail. In this way， greeting cards function as material testament to the lack of articulation at the heart of human experience，9 drawing attention to the gap between language and life.

This gap is at once infinitesimally10 small and so vast that it might never be adequately crossed. Small because， despite the opening between the two， it is through language that human beings encounter the world. Yet also vast because， aside from anything else， this participation is a conceptual structure formed by human beings to interpret life. Language is always a falsehood imposed upon the reality of silence.

At the extreme end of this， Georg Hegel11 wrote in the Jena Lectures （1805—6） that language murders the living things that it names. The implication is that when we speak or write， the nouns we use subsume12 the individual under a universal. In the act of identifying a “tree”， a “cat” or “sadness”， we destroy that objects individuality by categorically aligning13 it with all the other trees， cats and moments of sadness that have been and gone or are yet to come. Inscribing14 these sensations and objects into the historical register of languages conceptuality enacts a double violence： both refusing to recognise the uniqueness of the object， or feeling， and calling attention to its finitude， pointing directly towards its inevitable destruction. Language then appears to feed vampirically off the organic entities to which it becomes attached. It is both the way in which we gain access to life and that which destroys life through its very operation.

While we might wish to take this as a paean for quietness， a sign for us to take up Samuel Becketts aphorism that “every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness”，15 we know this is not possible. No matter what violence language commits against life， or what scale of human loss seems to render all speech meaningless， it is inevitably language that remains. Though there is a futility in languages attempt to express feeling， the card cannot be left blank. Something has， in the end， to be said.

Clichéd statements such as “I love you” and “Sorry for your loss”call attention to this double futility： language always fails but it is impossible to remain silent. Nowhere is this clearer than in the sympathy card phrase “There are no words”. Though the statement is true， in order to be given meaning it must be expressed and， in doing so， is falsified. This axis16 of articulation and absence， of speaking and silence， is the dilemma that language continually re-presents.

To take the elements of human experience and seek to mould them in the most mellifluous manner is to miss that very thing thats missing， the unsettling and moving lack that leaves language seeming clumsy and cumbersome.17 Greeting cards and cliché more generally bear witness to18 the fact that the most banal and the most meaningful regularly coincide， and that something always remains beyond the reach of words. Cliché is a place where life and language resist one another.

By recognising the radical imperfection of language， cliché can help ameliorate19 the damage it does. The continual return of these stock phrases reminds us that， though language can say “I love you” or “Our deepest sympathies”—which ties the love and grief we feel with all those who have ever， and will ever， love and grieve—it can never completely capture this grief or this love. After that， the universality of our love， our grief， begins to feel less like an act of violent conceptuality and more like an act of community， transposing us into a commune20 with all the living and the dead.

Greeting cards serve as a reminder that it is often with the clichéd and the ordinary that the fabric of language starts to unravel21， and the pulse of life—that which will always remain beyond words—begins to bubble up from beneath.

套話是創(chuàng)造力的死敵。當(dāng)下，不管是在文學(xué)領(lǐng)域，還是在人與人的常規(guī)交流中，這一看法都非常普遍。在書面語言領(lǐng)域，套話更是被描繪成語言的悲慘失敗。這種失敗更被妖魔化，被說成是模糊了真實的表達，徒然是平庸煽情，應(yīng)竭力避免。

作為一種交流方式，互送問候卡卻與上述對于套話的恐慌形成鮮明反差；問候卡的功用更是暴露出上述恐懼癥的諸多問題。套話是問候卡的關(guān)鍵所在，問候卡依靠套話存在?？ㄉ系男畔⒈灰槐楸槭褂?、丟棄：

為您的損失而悲傷。想著你。深表同情。我愛你。祝賀二位終成眷屬。祝您好運。生日快樂。早日康復(fù)。

等等等等。

交換此類滿載套話之物的行為毫無減緩的兆頭。電子交流與社交媒體大爆炸式增長已成今日人類聯(lián)系、交談的典型方式；然而，即便如此，問候卡仍然是一個巨大產(chǎn)業(yè)。在美國，每年大約有65億張問候卡售出，年零售額在70—80億之間。

問候卡出現(xiàn)在生活中某些最重要或最難過的場合：失去家人或朋友，傾訴愛與忠誠，抑或僅是感嘆時間流逝。奇怪的是，在這些有關(guān)愛或失落的時刻，語言無法精確達意，事實上，此時，意思自身開始瓦解，語言作為整體，展現(xiàn)出其無力。套話是一種標識或替代品，用以替代我們無法確切表達的東西。不論此類信息是預(yù)先印刷，還是我們親筆所寫，當(dāng)語言無法傳情之時，套話便有了用武之地。如此，問候卡便成為一個物質(zhì)明證，證明在人類體驗核心的語言的匱乏；于是，便使人們注意到語言與生活之間的隔閡。

這隔閡可以小到微不足道，也可以大到無法逾越。小，是因為二者之間雖確有間隙，但人類終究是要通過語言與世界交流。大，則是因為，且不論其他，這種交流行為首先是人類為了解釋生活而建立的概念框架。因而，語言總是強加在寂靜現(xiàn)實之上的一層假象。

說得極端些，比如，格奧爾格·黑格爾在《耶拿講座》（1805—6）中講到，語言謀殺了其描摹的活生生的事物。意即，當(dāng)我們說話、寫字時，我們使用的名詞會將個體淹沒在群體之內(nèi)。在認定一棵“樹”、一只“貓”，或者“悲傷”時，我們便毀掉了那個實體的個性，而將其類化，與其他樹、貓和那些或已消失，或?qū)⒊霈F(xiàn)的悲傷時刻混為一談。將這些感受和事物拉入到語言概念的歷史紀事之中，會形成一種雙重暴力：既拒絕認識某事物或感受的唯一性，也讓人們注意到它的局限性，直接指向它不可避免的毀滅。語言于是仿佛吸血鬼一般，靠壓榨其依附的有機體而存活。語言是我們借以進入生活的方法，卻也因自身的運行而摧毀生活。

可能有人認為這是給寂靜唱贊歌，是吟誦塞繆爾·貝克特的名言“每一個詞都像沉默與虛無身上無謂的污漬”的時候了；但事實并非如此。無論語言對生活做出何等暴力之舉，無論人類的損失何等慘痛，以至語言全無意義，最終留下的還是語言。雖然試圖用語言傳情仍是徒勞，問候卡總不能只是白紙一張。最終，總要說些什么。

俗套之詞，如“我愛你”、“為您的損失而悲傷”，讓我們注意到這種雙重的徒勞：語言總是失敗，但又無法保持沉默。這一點在“言語無法表達”這樣表達同情的問候話語中，最明顯不過了。雖然這個表述是真實的，但要使它具有意義，那就還要把它表達出來，而此行為本身，便使得這個表述為偽。這種表達與缺失、發(fā)聲與沉默的互搏，正是語言持續(xù)展現(xiàn)出的困境。

嘗試將人類體驗中的諸多成分以最順暢的方式融合在一起，還是會缺失它所缺失的東西，那令人不安、讓人感動的缺失感，使語言顯得笨拙、多余。問候卡和套話普遍見證了這個事實：最俗套與最有意義的東西往往重合，有些東西總是言語難以企及。套話提供了一個生活和語言互相抗拒的場合。

套話承認語言極不完美，因而可以幫助我們減少語言造成的傷害。陳詞濫調(diào)反復(fù)出現(xiàn)，提醒我們，雖然語言上可以說“我愛你”或“深表同情”——這些話把我們感受到的愛和傷感與所有曾經(jīng)、將會去愛、去傷感的人連在一起——語言永遠無法完全抓住這種愛或這種傷感。于是，我們的愛和傷感的普遍性，開始感覺不太像一種暴力的概念化行為，而更像是一種彼此聯(lián)系的行為，它把我們傳送到一個所有生者與逝者共存的群體之內(nèi)。

問候卡提醒人們，許多時候，正是憑借著那些俗套、平庸的東西，語言的構(gòu)造才開始展現(xiàn)出來，而生活的律動——它總是超出語言所能表達的范圍——也開始從深處汩汩涌出。

1. nemesis： // 天譴，克星。

2. pervade： 遍及，彌漫。

3. abject： 卑賤的，蹩腳的。

4. obfuscate： // 使混淆，使困惑；banal： 平庸的，索然無味的。

5. phobic： 恐怖的，源于phobia（恐懼感）；throw... into sharp relief： 凸顯某事，使某事變得顯而易見。

6. token： 象征，記號。

7. proliferation： 激增，涌現(xiàn)。

8. stand-in： 臨時替代者，代行職務(wù)者。

9. testament： 確定的證明；articulation：發(fā)音，表達。

10. infinitesimally： // 極微小地，微不足道地。

11. Georg Hegel： 格奧爾格·威廉·弗里德里希·黑格爾（1770—1831），德國哲學(xué)家，人們普遍認為其思想標志著19世紀德國唯心主義哲學(xué)運動的頂峰。

12. subsume： 將……歸入，將……納入。

13. align： 使一致。

14. inscribe： 題寫，刻。

15. paean： // 贊歌，凱歌； Samuel Beckett： 塞繆爾·貝克特（1906—1989），愛爾蘭作家，代表作《等待戈多》；aphorism： // 格言，警句。

16. axis： 坐標軸，對稱中心線。

17. mellifluous： 悅耳的，流暢的；cumbersome： 笨重的，冗長的。

18. bear witness to： 見證。

19. ameliorate： // 改善，減輕。

20. commune： 群體。

21. unravel： 揭示，闡明。