[Ruth Clarke]

Greetings. I am editing a manuscript in which the author has described entering the "hushed silence" of a cathedral. Would that not be noise, if the silence were hushed. Thanks for any light you can shed.

[kmtolan]

It can refer to either an explicit or implicit enforced silence, me thinks.

Kerry

[tsfoxe]

Wouldn't a novel description of that wonderful echoing quiet in cathedrals be better than a cliché?

[DougFarren]

tsfoxe is right - cliche's are to be avoided, they tend to brand a writer as an amateur. Not that that's true - just regurgitating what I've learned while reading

[Taramoc]

When did "hushed silence" become a cliche'?

I'm genuinely asking, I have never heard of that expression before...

[MrBF1V3]

Would that not be noise, if the silence were hushed?

No. What you have is a reinforcing redundancy, a modifier for a state of being. It's a hushed silence as opposed to a still silence or a tense silence or an echoing silence. Hushed, in this case, doesn't negate the silence part.

If I say, "I myself..." I don't mean "you."

It's not logic, it's language.

And, I have to say, if you spend all your time coming up with novel descriptions for everything, won't your novel be labelled as experimental? You have to use familiar constructions sometimes.

B5

[Fung Koo]

"Hush," as a verb, means "to become quiet." As a noun, it also means "silence following noise."

"Hushed silence" may communicate that silence is recently attained, and done so voluntarily by a group of people. There was noise from the group, someone or some event indicated to them that they should be quiet, and as a group they "hushed" -- became quiet. Silence is the current state, noise was the precedent state.

So yes, "hushed silence" would indicate that there had been some noise. Note that in a Cathedral, it might be an assumption on the readers' part that the preceding noise was a sermon, whispering, or perhaps music -- depending, obviously, on the context in the written piece you're editing.

Likewise, "hushed silence" may also communicate something more like "a tendency toward quiet" -- for example, pairs of tourists at the Ayasofya generally will talk to each other in low tones/quiet voices as they point out the various points of interest and try to observe silence in the Cathedral. After they point something out, they then return to silence -- they "hush." (Usually it's not a continual conversation. Usually...) As individuals, they repeatedly "hush" in this sense. As a group, though, there would be a consistent din of quiet voices.

[Mark Lawrence]

I don't think 'hushed silence' is redundant - it's evocative, reminding us of the compulsion a cathedral imposes on us as we enter - as if to let your voice echo in its great hall would not only be blasphemous but a singular crime against common decency and asthetic instinct :)

I'm sure I've seen the phrase many times - I wouldn't call it a cliche - but it's not the freshest turn of words. Then again you don't need every line to be bursting with originality to the point where you distract the reader from the story.

Mark

[Window Bar]

"Hushed silence" is a bit of a cliché, but it isn't one that bothers me. It's more in the category of "great meal." At least in my own brain, it's processed as a single concept. That's not to say the author couldn't work out something that might be better suited (fyi-- "better suited" is also a cliché) to his/her purpose. "Reverential silence" signals awe. "Ominous silence" (also a cliché) signals foreboding.

The clichés that truly grate on the readers' eyes and minds are the ones that were, in the beginning, very original or very forced. How about "throbbing manhood" in the bodice-ripper genre, or "eyes like limpid pools" in the romance genre?

Regarding clichés, we rarely get through a mid-sized paragraph without at least one. That's not to say it isn't delightful to read a piece in which the author invents new and original phrasing.

-- WB