As a cliché, also cliché, was originally a prefabricated printing block in the letterpress described. In most cases, however, the term means a pre-defined, prefabricated view, as well as a retracted idea of a state of affairs. Clichés are often related to a particular group of persons (eg: Germans are punctual) and anchored in words (example: punctual as the masons). Such thoughtless, partly unreflected, thought patterns are often used in trivial literature.
The term is derived from the French cliché, which goes back to the verb clicher. This can be translated with the clapping (imitate). The French cliché can be translated with a cliché, but it can also be used for mule, tavern or template. The translations point to what is at issue: namely, an imitated and retracted idea of a state of affairs.
The fact that the word comes from the letterpress, which means a prefabricated printstock, is another indication of its importance. Such printing blocks were stamp-like shapes which allowed a motif or certain lettering to be reproduced and printed as desired. The cliché was like a template (cut-out pattern) and meant, in a transcendent sense, thoughtful thinking.
The Germans are on time.
The above example is a stereotype and thus illustrates an indented idea. This statement is not rationally justified, so it is not directly based on evidence that has been developed directly by reason, and does not have to apply to all of the Germans. Accordingly, it represents a thought pattern whose correctness can not be directly tested: a typical cliché.
Such stereotypes are often negatively attributed, even if this is not always the case, and thus approach the prejudice. This is the unreflected opinion of a thing that can express itself in a general attitude. Furthermore, stereotypical ideas are often embedded in presentations, which is why the expression of a stereotype does not necessarily reflect the views of the speaker.
Just like the masons.
The above example is a saying that includes a cliché. The stereotypical idea is that masons are always punctual. However, the proverb is negatively attested, since it points out that masons are anxious to make a punctual evening or break and to put the trowel out of the hand.
The stereotype is thus a speech or thought schema that confirms a particular group, situation, or a fact with characteristics, which are subsequently regarded as typical for ebendiese and are directly associated with it. Conversely, this means that showing these properties makes the recipient (reader, viewer, listener) think of the object. Another example:
Women arent’t able to park.
The example is based on the view that women have poorer imagination than men and less of technical things than they understand. Such an image of the world today seems archaic, but dates from a time when women were mainly responsible for the household and the child-rearing, and men contested the family’s income or looked after handicrafts.
Consequently, the stereotype is not a well-founded fact, but rather an all-round opinion which has been attributed to certain groups of persons and has lasted over the years. Thus, the cause of a stereotype can usually be identified or comprehended, which is usually based on an opinion that many people have closed about a group.
All Bavaria wear leather trousers.
For centuries, leather, as it is hard wearing, is used as a material for working clothes. So also in the Alpine area. The forms of these trousers were adapted to the fashionable trends of the time. In the eighteenth century the popular peasant pumps were replaced by a French cut: the Culotte, a knot and trousers and the usual dressing gown for men of the late 17th and 18th century.
In the Alpine area, the pattern was expanded in that the Culotte was made of leather in order to be more resilient. While, after the French Revolution, long trousers were going on in large sections of the population, the workers of the Alpine region held fast to the Culotte, as it was a practical workpant. Nevertheless, over the course of time a woolen material became the main material of pants.
At this time, Josef Vogl, a teacher, complained about the disappearance of the practical leather trousers, and then founded a society of boys who propagated the wearing of short leather trousers. But their members were scorned by large sections of the population because of the scarcely handicapped, and even excluded from ecclesiastical processions