I haven't conducted any scientifically-valid surveys or research, but I'm nonetheless willing to bet that, at some point in their careers, every budding writer has been taught to avoid clichés like the plague. When a phrase has been used so often that it's lost all impact, well, it no longer has impact, and the writing comes across as lazy and unoriginal. Those are not great selling points and they don't engage readers. So let’s grab the bull by the horns and think outside the box so we can figure out how to avoid clichés, which I honestly think has been a problem since the dawn of time.