Memo to "Memo to:" go away

Last year, all sorts of people were thrown under the bus. This year, all sorts of people are getting memos.

The cliche of the moment that is all over English writing, including sportswriting, is "memo to." Usually, "memo to" is followed by some obvious bit of advice or information.

Mike Florio of PFT writes: "Memo to Ed: 'Ya think?'"

James Gordon of the Ottowa Citizen writes: "One last memo to Burke: the Oilers are now ahead of your team in the standings with a game in hand."

Jeff Potrykus of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal writes: "Memo to UW fans: Take a moment in the next few weeks to appreciate the skill of Mehlhaff."

Clark Judge of CBS Sports writes: "Memo to Dan Snyder: Find a wide receiver by next year."

The New York Daily News' Mitch Lawrence writes: "Memo to Steve Nash's teammates: Stay on the bench next spring."

Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun writes: "And, memo to a giddy Red Sox Nation: The other 22 have ended up as world champions."

People: this is just a sampling of sports articles I found from the last two days. What if I expanded my search out for the last week? What if I expanded it beyond sportswriting to include all writing?

Bloggers are really no better, but if I wanted to list blogs that included the "memo to" cliche recently, I couldn't finish this post in time to watch Journeyman.

Such repetitive, unthinking use of language suggests a lack of creativity. Essentially, one sportswriter could be replaced by any other sportswriter, and you'd get a similar result. Send Dan Connolly to Ottowa, send Jeff Potrykus to Baltimore, send Mitch Lawrence to Milwaukee, and you'll still get columns with "Memo to" followed by some attempt at witty obviousness.