09/17/2026
Print shop trivia: both "cliché" and "stereotype" started life in print shops. A stereotype was a solid metal plate cast to reprint the same page over and over, and cliché was the French printers' word for that same plate, supposedly named for the sound it made when cast.
A phrase that got printed to death became a cliché. An image repeated without thinking became a stereotype. Every time you use either word, you're speaking printer.