Ah, the proverbial fifth post …

What we're gonna do right here is go back … way back … back into time. The year was 1999, and I was the opinion editor at the Milford High School newspaper. I already wanted to be a copy editor, although I didn't yet know what they were called. All I knew was the satisfaction I gained from making people's writing better – helping them say what they wanted to say but didn't know how to express clearly.

It was the year that I would have my first run-in with an all-too-common writer's gaffe that would become a thorn in my side for years to come. It remains one of my most treasured pet peeves.

A columnist submitted a (not at all badly written) piece on how people should not judge their fellow students by their secret love for 'NSync. She outed herself as a boy-band fan in the very first paragraph, then paused. "Did you hear that? The proverbial gasp!" she wrote – imagining, no doubt, the expressions of horror on the faces of her Hot-Topic-shopping readers.

Upon reading that sentence, I racked my brain for the proverb about "she who taps her toes to the beat of five 19-year-olds who dress in matching outfits and pop-and-lock in perfect unison shalt be subject to ridicule and gasping" – to no avail.

(That was an awfully roundabout way of getting to the point, and if I ever come across a piece of journalistic writing that takes nine sentences to get to the point, they had better be at least nine times more entertaining than what is written here. Do as I say, dear readers – not as I do.)

Here's the thing - and the "proverbial" thing is very similar to the "literally" thing. If there's no proverb about it, you can't use the word. Period. And a proverb, sayeth Dictionary.com, is "a short pithy saying in frequent and widespread use that expresses a basic truth or practical precept."

Therefore, I can say that I took the proverbial ounce of prevention, but I cannot say that I was on the proverbial fence. "On the fence" isn't a proverb; it's a metaphor. You can say you were on the metaphorical fence or on the figurative fence. (But here's an idea. Why not just say you're undecided?)

When you have the urge to use "proverbial" in your writing, give yourself a reality check. What exactly is the expression you're using? Are you sure it's a proverb? If not, is it a metaphor, figure of speech, euphemism - or something else entirely? (In the case of my 'NSync-loving columnist, what she actually meant was that, given the closed minds of her high-school audience, a gasp was the typical, familiar or expected reaction.) Make these distinctions, and assign the proper adjectives accordingly.