One that comes to mind for me: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is not always true. Maybe even only half the time! Are there any phrases you tend to hear and shake your head at?
“It’s all good”
Who you kidding, chief?
"No pain, no gain. "
As someone who’s been running for over 30 years and working ou for 20, if there is pain, there is injury. When there is injury, you take a break and regress. People may say that muscle pain or stiff muscles are a sign of a good workout, not an injury. However, even with those your risk of injury is much higher, and you’ll eventually hurt yourself. “No pain” should be one of the outcomes of smart exercise, not an admonishment for not working hard enough.
“If you can’t take me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”
“Idle hands make the devils workshop.”
The top one reminds me of “I can be your best friend, or your worst enemy.” So you’re a petty asshole, got it.
“If you can’t take me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”
I always take that as “l am a garbage person who will abuse you.” It is a MASSIVE red flag.
Or it’s something you tell the abuser, when thy dismiss your emotions.
“Let’s agree to disagree”.
No, you asshole, we are getting to the bottom of this: you expose your reasoning for your position and I will do the same and this ends when reason doesn’t support anymore one of the 2 sides.
When you forget what you were about to say:
“Must not have been important”
How in the ever-living fuck could anybody come to that conclusion?
I’d only ever say it while referring to myself, and when I do it’s not of a consolation to myself or maybe as a way to tell the other person to not feel sorry about distracting me and making me forget. Is that the same way you interpret it?
I appreciate this alternative interpretation. Many of the responses here are helping to show the many lenses that can be looked through at the same phrases!
Every single time that’s happened to me and I later remembered what it was, it wasn’t important.
I meean, if it was really important, it’s very unlikely you would forget it. We use that saying a ton here
Not important to them, very important to you.
“Good vibes only”.
I don’t agree with it because if your life is trying to be only good things, all the time, then that means you don’t know what bad times are. It means everything in your life is artificial and you have no perspective on the world around you.
It’s not human to expect only to feel good all the time. It tells me there’s a drug induced artificial happyness that’s probably a bigger problem then just having a rough day.
You can have the worst day of you life and still have good vibes. The real toxic saying would be “good moods only.”
We still experience bad times. But the point is not to be a dick
“it is what it is”
If it weren’t what it is, well, it wouldn’t be anything at all, would it?
Not a fan of “it is what it is”. It’s called a thought-terminating cliche. It often means “I’m tired of talking about this, do it my way” when my boss says it.
It’s good for when talking about things beyond your control. They way your boss is using it is bullshit. In that case, it is what he’s choosing to decide it is.
It’s what it’s
I agree, when it’s used as a thought-terminating cliché. It’s also very applicable to impart acceptance of something that you can’t control.
I used it today to communicate my feelings on a topic I can’t control. Like, me venting isnt going to improve my or the questioners situation.
In principal I am against thought-termination. Sometimes, like a good dog, you gotta put a thought out of its misery
I use it more in acceptance, like if I’m late for work and I hit traffic. Short of driving up the shoulder like an asshole, I’m going to be late. So rather than be stressed for the rest of my commute, I just accept that I’ll be late. It is what it is.
,I feel like this one is context dependent. Sometimes it’s just acceptance of the situation.
“Wish it weren’t so hot outside, but this is Texas in August. It is what it is.”
Context definitely matters. Your example wouldn’t bother me.
Some people seem to think it’s a mic drop in other contexts.
Interesting. I use it to indicate I may not like a situation, but I have to play the have I was dealt to the best of my ability, and sometimes… Well to quote lyrics, “got to know when to hold cem, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run.”
An entirely hollow statement, yet somehow ringing with apathy.
I use it for things that can be talked about for ages, but nothing can be changed about them. I don’t use it to terminate discussion, but more of a well understood quick hand for acceptance and sometimes resignation.
Well, it is what it is.
Damn. I was going to say that.
Ah well, es lo que es.Dos eck eeeees
The basic law of Cologne:
§1: Et es wie et es. („It is how it is.“) Look the facts in the eye, you can’t change them.
$2: Et kütt wie et kütt. („It’ll come as it comes.“) Accept the inevitable, you can’t change fate.
§3: Et hätt noch emmer joot jejange. („Everything turned out fine in the past.“) What turned out okay yesterday, will still work tomorrow. Situationally: We know it’s shit, but it’s the best we can do with what we have.
§4: Wat fott es, es fott. („What’s gone is gone.“) Don’t cling to the past.
§5: Et bliev nix wie et wor. („Nothing ever stays the same.“) Be open to new developments.
I use it when people keep complaining about situations they cannot change. Yes, we fell in the hole, yes it hurt, please just let’s focus on how to get out.
“Ah fuck, this hole sucks! Who even dug that here!? My shoes are dirty, my pants are a mess!” …
“Well… It is what it is. Let’s get out.”
Tautology is tautology, as I say.
The first rule of the tautology club…
Titties what titties. Why did I think this would be funny
I like it. It’s premise is accepting things beyond your control, allowing someone to stoically move forward rather than dwell in anxiety and disbelief.
It do be like that
I’ve always liked it. I guess it depends who is saying it because when my old boss said it, it meant more like, “this is the situation we’re in, let’s not waste time arguing about why it is the situation and let’s just focus on dealing with it and going forward”
Yeah it can have wildly different meanings depending on the circumstances in which it’s said. It can be “well we can’t change it, may as well get on with life” all the way to “well this discussion is not gonna change anything, let’s get on with fixing it”. Very similar, but polar opposite sentiments.
You bring an interesting point! So there’s a Japanese phrase this reminds me of: Shouganai (しょうがない) which translates to “It can’t be helped”. For me, this hits differently than “It is what it is”. Perhaps it’s the context, as I know it’s said about natural disasters like tsunamis and therefore has a connotation of the “getting on with fixing it” like you said.
Those sentiments seem identical to me.
First one is saying there’s no point fixing anything, just get over it. Second one saying fixing it might suck, let’s fix it anyway.
Very, very different…
Oh? They both read to me as “We can’t change the past, only the future”.
Oedipus begs to differ.
I personally would only use the original phrase to imply what you’re saying. This is why context matters so much I think; some people just use it as a thought terminating cliche, I’m afraid.
On the rare occasions that I’ve dragged out “it is what it is”, I’ve really wanted to say something like neither of us can change it, and instead of working towards a solution, all you’ve done is COMPLAIN for the last hour. Now SHUT UP, accept the situation, and make yourself useful!
Sure, not everything needs to be picked apart in detail. But, I never use the phrase myself. As someone else ITT pointed out, context matters, too.
I tend to say things like, “we should fix it now, worry about blame later”. Or something along those lines.
“Agree to disagree” is even worse, especially since often the thing you’re arguing about is an empirical goddamn fact and they are not entitled to “disagree” about it. That’s not having a difference of opinion; that’s just fucking being wrong!
Ooo I get that one, but kinda the opposite way. I tell someone it has to be done this way, or to a certain standard, for it to be right. They don’t want to, so they respond with that nonsense.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”
“At least, not immediately visibly. But over time and with enough repetition and obsession they will carve canyons through my personality and emotional wellbeing. These canyons will be filled with emotional sticks and stones; huge, warped phantoms of the words they represent.”
Take care with your words y’all. But also, who cares what they think!
Scrubs’ version was, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will hurt forever.”
I once made my mom go quiet, and then apologize to me, defeating this point.
I was telling her that she could be really cruel with her words sometimes, and that I’d like to her to be less so. She told me I shouldn’t take it so seriously, grow a thicker skin, that they’re just words.
But she’s my mother, and what she thinks of me and what she says will always weigh ten times more in my mind than the words of almost anyone else. Ignoring what strangers think of me is easy, but with her, it’s literally impossible. I was telling her off because I knew she doesn’t mean the worst of what she says, and that despite that, coming from her every word hits like a freight train. That it takes enormous effort to think through and discount the parts she doesn’t mean. I told her that.
At the time I felt really clever for making that point. Getting her to actually go quiet and say sorry felt amazing, so it stayed with me.
I later realized it probably landed so hard because of how her parents treated/treat her.
“Can’t be helped.”
Your attitude is why things don’t change.
“Everything happens for a reason .”
No. Fuck no, and fuck you. I DARE you to say that to the faces of the endless innocent people—many of whom are CHILDREN—who have been murdered, tortured, abused, enslaved, raped, ect.
I hate how people use this but not the phrase itself.
Everything DOES happen for a reason. It’s literal, precise, and accurate. Reasons dont need to be mysterious, aloof, or unknowable. They often are because we choose to stop learning but everything does happen for a reason so start looking for better questions
The reasons just don’t necessarily come with any moral take away attached.
Children get bone cancer for purely physical reasons, yes, but there is no plan behind it, nothing that makes the situation better in any way and this is how the phrase is usually being used. It’s people saying: “Don’t be sad, something good will come of it.” to the faces of grieving parents or deathly ill people who have nothing to look forward to but pain.
Religious/spiritual proselytising has completely alienated the phrase from the methodological naturalism it could express.
Children get bone cancer for purely physical reasons, yes, but there is no plan behind it, nothing that makes the situation better in any way and this is how the phrase is usually being used
My exact point. Im glad you agree with me
I mean, everything does happen for a reason. It’s just that most of the time, the reason is “because so-and-so is an asshole”. It makes it essentially a useless platitude, but not an untrue one. I definitely take issue with the implication of it, that there’s some supreme, all-knowing authority in the universe who has this complicated, labyrinthine plan for everyone that involves massive amounts of suffering. That whole “mysterious plan of God” thing is a way for Christians to take credit for all of the good stuff that happens, while downplaying all of the bad stuff that happens as just “part of God’s plan!” It’s insidious.
All those innocent people being abused usually have a reason behind it too; it’s just that the reason is usually corporate greed and a lack of ethics in politics.
I think I get the sentiment that you are angry at but there is nothing wrong with that statement. It just doesn’t mean “whelp, there must be some higher purpose those things are serving that we don’t see” and is more like “there are some awful people doing bad things” or “they just were living in a seismic area” or “they had some genes not compatible with their survival”… There are always reasons. Not satisfying or purpose fulfilling reasons, just reasons.
Key indicator of privilege right there.
My preferred response to this is, “Entropy. The eventually and unstoppable heat death of the universe where none of this matters is the reason.”
I used to say this when I was a cringy 20-year-old, before I really saw and understood the world (and still believed in a god).
Second time I’m bringing it up in this thread, but in response to exactly that kind of thinking is why I’ve adopted “the universe doesn’t care, so we have to” as a phrase I try to live by.
There are so many popular ways of thinking that absolve humans and humanity of various kinds of responsibility.
It’s not good.
“Quick question” just means you want a quick answer
I use this, and I struggle a little to disengage when the person I ask interprets it as “help me figure out how to solve this” when they don’t actually have the “short answer”.
I think there is rarely a short answer despite what the question implies
Yeah, that’s fair, especially in software work.
I try to only use that when it’s information I expect the person already knows and can answer quickly (i.e. generally very concrete yes/no questions of low complexity)
Yeah, I use it in contexts where if they know the answer offhand, great please help, but if they don’t know, I’m not requesting they spend time or effort looking it up. I can do that myself and don’t intend to offload that part.
It’s like a short answer question on a quiz rather than a research paper term assignment, except leaving the answer blank on the quiz is an acceptable answer.
I see it like a special move.
Like I’m interjecting/interrupting.
So like “Quick question attack! Where did you get that pie?”
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
Who wants two birds in their bush? I don’t even want one bird in my bush; they might peck at my worm!
“Cheer up, it may never happen”
I’m sorry but if I’m not in a good mood or I’m sad it’s because something has happened to make me feel like it.
“everything has pros and cons”
I usually give the CGP Grey’s legendary answer: “…but it’s hardly ever the case that all the pros and all the cons all PERFECTLY balance each other out, right?”
