"It is what it is."

[Tom Strong]

I mean, seriously, what the fuck?

Why are so many people saying this all of a sudden? I'm not kidding: I've heard/read the phrase four fucking times today already and all I've really done is read the latest Newsweek, play a little Xbox, run out to the post office real quick, and then check out DU.

But that's not the worst part. The worst part is, best as I can tell, the phrase means absolutely nothing. It's like going, "uh." It's grammatical filler. Worse, it's linguistic litter, just cluttering up the joint and bringing everybody down.

"It is what it is."

Aaarrrrgghhhh!

And I thought "cognitive dissonance", "paradigm shift", and "not so much" were bad!

"It is what it is" makes those words look like deep fucking poetry.

It strikes me that language is kind of like fashion in a sense in that there are distinct and definite tends, and right now "it is what it is" is on every fuckin' runway in Paris. But I got news for all you people who use it, thinking you've found "the new black," no doubt. The truth is, you haven't found that at all, all you've found is the new fucking parachute pants, and all you're doing is sounding like a damn fool.

Anyway...are there any words or phrases (past or present) that tick you guys off too? Or have I just had too much coffee today? I'd be interested to hear.

[porphyrian]

1. "Obey", "Consume and Procreate".

"Forget everything you just heard and go back to sleep."

[Deja Q]

24. That only works while you still can...

Phew, it's a good thing I don't procreate. The things I'd have to do if I had to give up not having sex...

[porphyrian]

32. If only I had a nickel for all of the things I'm not doing... -n/t

[Phillycat]

2. My husband is English, and that is his LEAST favorite Americanism.

He LOATHES that phrase, for the same reason you do - it means nothing.

[Tom Strong]

5. You married a smart bloke

He knows the score: Why say in five words what you can say in none?

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Actually, I used that phrase to get me through my mother's passing. I guess in my case

it was just an an attempt to hurry along acceptance of the new normal.

[Tom Strong]

7. Dorothy Parker would be proud n/t

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. Well, I wasn't out to win literary awards. I just wanted to maintain my sanity and that

phrase helped a lot. "It is what it is" = stop dwelling on the what ifs in this case.

[LaurenG]

4. I used to say that...

back in the 90's.

No words really irritate me unless they are things I don't understand like acronyms with no reference.

[DS1]

6. I had a fucking asshole dipshit useless 'boss' who said that

I wanted to punch him in the face

[Tom Strong]

9. Fuck yeah!

You just made my night, DS1.

[rug]

8. It's all Doris Day's fault.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=R6WDdZ6xaPg

[Tom Strong]

10. HA, HA, HA! Nice work, rug

And your startling discovery has given me a new mission in life: I'm going to invent a time machine, go back to the dawn of the last century, and fucking kill Doris Day's future mother. You know, like The Terminator.

[hippywife]

11. That one doesn't bother me as much as

"It's all good." Because, well...it's not all good. It never has been and never will be.

Cognitive dissonance I have no problem with at all because it is an actual phenomenon and I can't think of a better way to describe it, really.

Welcome to DU. :hi:

[Tom Strong]

12. That raises an interesting question, hippywife

Is a phrase that adds nothing worse than one that subtracts from the truth? Hmmm. Probably not. So mark me down as hating "it's all good" too, because, like you say, it clearly isn't. And thanks for the welcome.

[yoyossarian]

13. Whenever I hear someone say "It is what it is"...

I just want to say to them, "Look, man, fun is fun, but ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"

Actually, the ones that annoy me are:

Yaknowwhatahmsayin'?

Generally, this comes from people who I DON'T know what they're sayin', either cuz they don't enunciate real well or simply cuz they're not sayin' anything but that, over and over... they'll make like, two click sounds and a grunt, then "Yaknowwhatahmsayin?" and I'm like, "No, I don't know that language... do YOU know what you're saying?"

And then, in a similar vein:

"You feel me? You feel me?"

I write it twice, but often this can be asked as many as 27 or 28 times in a row when the speaker is excited and/or jonesin' for some meth...
Ironically enough, this is most often asked by people I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

And then there's my least favorite of all, most often spoken by those trying to screw me senseless, then ransack my person for any loose change and cigarettes they can plunder:

"My fellow Americans..."




T-shirts, mugs, buttons n' cards at http://cafepress.com/laughcity">Laugh City

http://steponnopets.com/peo">President Evil Online has risen from the grave!

[Tom Strong]

16. "Look, man, fun is fun, but ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!"

HAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm gonna steal that one, yoyossarian. Perfect response.

[CreekDog]

14. Well, it is what it is

I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist. This one's for me: :spank:

[Tom Strong]

23. Harder! n/t

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

17. I yam what I yam.

Better? :evilgrin:

[Tom Strong]

22. Well, blow me fuckin' down.

It DIDN'T originate with Doris Day! It originated with fuckin' POPEYE!!! You see that, all you people who insist upon using this phrase? You see where you're getting your profound little insight from?

YOU'RE. GETTING. IT. FROM. FUCKING. POP. EYE.

"I yam what I yam."

*toot,toot*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Zuiderelle]

18. Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose

[Deja Q]

25. Try watching this Rose and wonder if you'd tolerate the kiss...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7GEuLnaACU

Still trying to find the awful scene from "The Parting of the Ways" where she's in the restaurant with mum and Mickey, bawling her eyes out...


Now this one almost makes up for it all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJxj8sp2zNA

[pokerfan]

19. I've noticed that too

It's always been out there only now everyone seems to be using it.

It is what it is.

[zabet]

20. Ain't nothin' but a thing

like a chicken wing.

:silly:

[Oeditpus Rex]

21. I'll give ya four nickel curves

for that paradigm shift.

:D









(Anyone who gets that is automatically my bestest friend. :) )

[leeroysphitz]

26. I always thought that "It is what it is" was another way to say C'est la vie".

No?

[Tom Strong]

27. No.

"C'est la vie," means "such is life" or "that's the way it goes." And it refers to something other than itself, just like "that's nice" does, or "that's really sucky" does. It's a comment upon something, usually the world's cruel ways. It has MEANING.

"It is what it is," on the other hand, is ONLY referring to itself. It tells us nothing and points us nowhere. It's a crashed computer program of a phrase running an endless, mindless loop: Itiswhatitisitiswhatitisitiswhatitis. . .infinity.

Now, if I knew how to say "The way it goes is the way it goes" in French or, beter yet, "Life is life", then we'd have our French phrases that were pretty much equivalent to "it is what it is," and by that I mean, every bit as totally fuckin' stupid.

[leeroysphitz]

31. Yes.

Too say "It is what it is" is to say this is what we get out of our lives or our circumstances or a given situation in other words and there is no way to change it or "what else did you expect?"

This is the question you are really asking when you say such is life: "You can't change it so what else did you expect?" :)

Both phrases are obviously, to anyone with any sort of grasp of either language, an acknowledgment of resignation and inevitability. What was it that you thought I meant? Something about repitition and/ or fuckin' stupidity?

BTW the next time you use a phrase like "totally fuckin' stupid" in reference to a benign, well meant, and good faith reply to one of your inane and pointless OP's You will have a commercial sized can of industrial strength verbal whoop-ass opened and dumped on your head.

[HughBeaumont]

28. "We're not trying to 'reinvent the wheel' here"

Right, because you can't really improve on a perfect circle with no general operational flaws, dumbass.

"At the end of the day . . . "

At the end of the day, we'll utter eighty-five more Dilbert-boss phrases that make not an ounce of sense.

GOD I hate MBAnese.

[harmonicon]

29. yeah, I also hate that. I don't hear it much anymore, but the one that used to really get to me..

was "be open minded".... or it's friends, "try to be open minded" and "you're not being open minded". So far as I could ever tell, when "open minded" was uttered it really meant "apathetic". People would get pissed at me for making a value judgement about something and tell me to be "open minded". I can't stand that shit.

[fishwax]

30. It's a bit like "que sera sera" in the present tense

doesn't bother me, but that's partly because years before it became a burr under your saddle it was an excellent song by Steve Forbert. Of course, anything used to much is bound to annoy :)

The one that bothers me (it's been a few years since I worked in an office, but it remains irksome to me) is "take ownership of (this task, project, etc.)."

btw, welcome to DU :toast: