zodiac9 Dec 2005

Dovina and AlChemy are correct, except that I also googled phrases which were close or got to the gist of the image/connection/whatever - ie, "You left me here, alone and sad" => "You left me alone" + "You left me sad" + "you left me sad and alone" + "You left me alone and sad". I imagine the problem with making an automatic cliche counter would be getting it to do that, to search "Went to a better place" or "Went on to a better place" instead of "And went on to a better place", for example. That's easier for us, we already know what the cliches are. Ideally, an automatic cliche counter would also have to correct bad grammar, since that seems to go hand-in-hand with cliche on this site. The numbers, as you've guessed, are the number of google hits, roughly. I can only find one other GOOGLE CLICHE COUNT on poemranker's Search-o-Mat, but I'm sure there have been more, probably with more user-friendly formats.

Naturally, GOOGLE CLICHE COUNT is only a very rough indicator of clicheness and, Dovina's snarky assessment notwithstanding, not meant by me as any real measure. (Though in its defense, notice that it managed to pick out Caducus's biggest cliches, "Promises were made" and "Waiting for a train". Incidentally, this doesn't mean that Caducus's poems are great, only that they're comparatively less cliche.) In deference to Dovina's sensibilities, I've at least decided that posting a TOTAL CLICHE COUNT at the end is unfair and unnecessary. So bite it, Dovina.