|
December 14, 2006
It is what it is: I generally like to be an early adopter of catch phrases. I was "throwing people under the bus" before most of you and adding "...right?" to the end of declarative sentences right along with MIT geeks and New York moguls.
And yet I fall victim to cliches and tired phrases like everyone else. It's generally in conversation and rough drafts, but occasionally a really bad phrase will make it into a final draft (and since almost everything on this blog is a rough draft, I'll apologize now for all past and future lazy uses of the English language).
Barry Freed at tellhimfred.com is asking people to submit catch phrases we hear that "constantly...either annoy you or just don’t make sense." He offers three examples -- "At the end of the day.." (which was hugely popular in Pittsburgh and something I didn't hear all that often until I moved there and had to quote Steve Leeper on a regular basis), "There you go" and "If I were you."
For instance: “If I were you, I’d punch him in the face.” Well, if you were me, you wouldn’t do that, because I realize I would get punched back. But I suppose after you took on my existence and punched someone, you could switch back to being you before the person you/I punched retaliates. Convenient.
My two submissions are things I will admit to having used far too often in the past. "Dude," although I did pretty much grow out of that after my junior year of high school and figured it I'm not a pimp and it isn't nice to go around calling people horse's penises; and "It is what it is." Well, yeah, but what exactly is it?
If you catch me using either of them, well, if I were you, I'd punch me in the face. Dude.Labels: writing
Posted at 5:09 PM
link |
|
Return to Dave Copeland's Blog
|
