About 20 years ago I was very fond of the word \u2018iconic\u2019. It really emphasised the visual impact and\/or cultural importance of an object or person.<\/p>\n
I reserved the word for those special occasions when something or someone WAS truly iconic. Things like the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House and the Union Jack were all iconic, I felt. Similarly, people like Marilyn Monroe, Abraham Lincoln and Muhammad Ali were also icons in my mind.<\/p>\n
However, nowadays the term is assigned lightly and frequently to almost anything and anyone by lazy writers and speakers who wish to \u2018sex up\u2019 what they are communicating.<\/p>\n
Even works of music, which form no solid shape, are often described as iconic.<\/p>\n
I felt compelled to write this blog post after reading in a TV magazine recently that the characters Abi and Lauren in Eastenders were an \u2018iconic duo\u2019.<\/p>\n
Unbelievable, eh?<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re still reading this then you probably agree with me that the word has lost its potency through overuse.<\/p>\n
So how do we take it back? Well, the sad news is that we may never restore this word to its former status.<\/p>\n
I can only hope it falls out of fashion and will eventually be used appropriately once again\u2026 Right now, I shrink from using it for fear of sounding like a clich\u00e9-reliant hack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About 20 years ago I was very fond of the word \u2018iconic\u2019. It really emphasised the visual impact and\/or cultural …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,21,16,7,3,6],"yoast_head":"\n