The relationship between cliché and technical expression is as complex as that between literary studies and technical translation: a matter of borders. Because it ignores semantic wear and tear and intends to objectivize scientific phenomenons, technical expression ignores clichés as such. They make only marginal appearances, when the textual aim ceases to be technical (corporate communication, vulgarization, generalization...). In economics, though, the margin tends to be quite large. At the same time, technical texts - and all the more their translations - are saturated with standardized visual representations (paradigms) and stereotyped formulations and characters which are close relatives to clichés and have to be identified as such and, sometimes, transcended. The study of cliché can thus be construed as a starting point for a comparative study of literary and technical texts, and of their modes of translation.