another of my least favorite clichés

The usually incisive Nate Silver, in an article (with which I agree) about how the New York Knicks made an economic mistake by not matching Houston’s offer for Jeremy Lin:

“If the definition of insanity is trying the same process over and over and hoping for better results, Dolan’s strategy of locking in 30-something veterans to max contracts every year has been a little mad.”

The act of trying the same process over and over and hoping for better results is sometimes known as “patience,” “determination,” or “perserverance.” It seems to have been a relatively minor novelist who minted this idea, but it has now reached viral proportions, at least in the United States, among both educated and uneducated people. I’m disappointed that someone of Silver’s brilliance tripped into the manure.

Actually, this seems to be one of Silver’s lazier columns. Even in the opening, he gave us a lazy cliché:

“In February, during the height of the Linsanity phenomenon, I attended a game at Madison Square Garden between the Knicks and the Sacramento Kings. The tickets cost an arm and a leg.”

Forgivable in conversation. But if you’re writing a major media column, it’s not too tough to come up with some sort of fresh variation on “cost an arm and a leg.”