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A lot can happen in 40 days.

In the Old Testament, Noah and his family weathered a flood that washed over the world for 40 days and 40 nights. In the New Testament, Jesus walked in the desert for 40 days, turning back temptation from the devil.

Forty days from this Friday — on Wednesday, Nov. 9 — Americans will wake up to a world in which the 2016 election will be over. By then, barring some idiotic election snafu (I'm looking at you, Florida), we should know who the 45th president of the United States will be.

Until that glorious day, media outlets will continue to subject us to breathless campaign coverage, numerous live cutaways to stump speeches, and countless hours and column inches filled with groundless speculation and partisan spin.

I'm sure there are phrases and tropes from the media onslaught that you are tired of hearing over and over again. Heck, I'm a confirmed political junkie, and there's stuff I never want anyone to say or write again.

Here's my short list of political clichés that should be excised from the pundits' dialogue:

"In a normal election …" • The pundits stress the need to toss out "conventional wisdom," because this presidential election is unlike all past elections — to wit, it pits the first female candidate nominated by a major party against an egomaniacal TV host who lies like a rug.

First, this election isn't all that different, since substantively the two candidates' platforms are similar to their predecessors'; most of Hillary Clinton's proposals are in line with President Barack Obama's, give or take, while Donald Trump's platform (when he remembers to talk about it) is an only slightly exaggerated version of what Mitt Romney and John McCain ran on.

Second, every election has its quirks, something unique from what went before it — whether it was the first African-American candidate to represent a major party (2008), or the first African-American incumbent to seek re-election (2012), or the first actor to win the White House (1980), or whatever. If you look deep enough, there's always something to make an election something other than "a normal election."

Any sports comparison • Even good writers fall into this trap. This week, The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik wrote an analysis of Monday's presidential debate, the first three paragraphs of which included allusions to wrestling and football. Enough already. Politics is not sports; the stakes are too high, and the outcomes are never as clear as a final score. (And, for the love of Seattle Slew, can we stop referring to "the horse race" when discussing who's ahead or behind in the polls?)

"Someone you could have a beer with" • This shorthand for just-folks approachability was tossed about when George W. Bush was running — and became so ubiquitous that Lin-Manuel Miranda quoted it in "Hamilton." It's one I have never understood, because I don't want to have a beer with my president. I would hope my president would be too busy, soberly trying to solve problems and keep the world safe, so I and other Americans can stop worrying and go have a beer with our friends.

Any euphemism for the color orange • Jokes about The Donald's spray-tanned appearance have gotten old. They're a cheap shot against his physical appearance, the very thing his critics accuse him of doing against women and others. If you don't like Trump, he's left you plenty of ammunition, so don't waste your breath with cracks about his skin tone.

"Fact-checking" • To be clear, I support the act of checking facts, of holding candidates accountable for what they say and calling them out when they are lying. My objection is to the label "fact-checking," because I'm old-school enough to remember when we called it by another name: journalism.

"The Party of Lincoln" • Republicans never tire of reminding people who their party's first president was. I wonder if Honest Abe would approve of how his party's current candidate talks about race — or how members of his party seem bent on restricting voting rules in ways that disproportionately affect minorities.

Anything uttered by Corey Lewandowski • It's a crime against journalism for one of the nation's main news outlets, CNN, to put on its payroll a mouthpiece for one of the presidential candidates — a man who (until this week) was receiving money from the Trump campaign and who by contract is not allowed to say anything bad about his old employer.

However, it is refreshing to see, as I did after Monday night's debate, that the actual reporters on CNN seem to be staging their own rebellion against the network's brass, by journalistically ripping to shreds any statement that comes out of Lewandowski's mouth.

Sean P. Means writes The Cricket in daily blog form at www.sltrib.com/blogs/moviecricket. Follow him on Twitter @moviecricket. Email him at spmeans@sltrib.com.