The "Annoying Phrase" Thread

[tonyb]

"Reopening the economy" makes it sound like a simple matter of Sam Drucker going down to his store and flipping the sign from "closed" to "open." Which is exactly why they use it. Every word that comes out of Offices of Communication is carefully selected by experts on psychological marketing for maximum impact on the easily manipulated. It's a fundamental technique of propaganda.

None of these phrases ever arise by chance. If reporters were really doing their jobs, they would refuse to propagate them.

That’s about the size of it.

 

[Harp]

I call this the "Ulysses - Joyce" phenomenon...all the poseurs call it challenging and creative to mask that they don't understand it and likely didn't enjoy reading it if in fact they actually did finish it.

a Moocow Usurper.

 

[Harp]

^^^^
Dead? No signs of life? No economic activity?

Just the death rattle. (occurs at human death)

 

[tonyb]

and today realize that your maleness is a choice.

Well, we are in an age of every person being entitled to his or her or “their” (employed as a singular) “own truth.”

 

[tonyb]

Just the death rattle. (occurs at human death)

It is not to make light of the dire financial prospects facing millions of our fellows to note that even in the depths of the Depression the economy wasn’t “dead.”

 

[LizzieMaine]

I call this the "Ulysses - Joyce" phenomenon...all the poseurs call it challenging and creative to mask that they don't understand it and likely didn't enjoy reading it if in fact they actually did finish it.

My cat read "Ulysses" just last week: https://www.rocklandstrand.com/news/social-distancing-chapter-9-which-we-do-little-light-reading

 

[tonyb]

I suspect I will be alternately amused and outraged by the euphemisms issuing from the mouths of pundits and politicians in the coming weeks and months.

 

[belfastboy]

My cat read "Ulysses" just last week: https://www.rocklandstrand.com/news/social-distancing-chapter-9-which-we-do-little-light-reading

What fun.

 

[Harp]

It is not to make light of the dire financial prospects facing millions of our fellows to note that even in the depths of the Depression the economy wasn’t “dead.”

Understood. And I am not arguing semantics. But whatever the term: "freefall," "dead," "F.....d," "Closed"
the American economy at this moment is not a living, breathing, organism.
And not that it cannot be resuscitated. Unfortunately, society rests upon a firm economic foundation
which has been badly shaken, societal reverberation and upheaval will resonate, and the longer this viral
struggle continues the longer will said recover take. Also, the stimulus package as structured will ignite inflation.
To add more fuel to this particular fire, the federal deficit is beyond control.
The American economy now flatlines the economic EKG.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^
Words matter. Semantic values matter.

The economy may be going over a cliff. I certainly hope it isn’t, but I don’t dismiss the possibility. But even if it does, it will still show signs of life.

For now, daily economic activity is very much alive.

I look to how Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore have coped. We Yanks ain’t Singaporeans, and what flies with the public there might meet with strong resistance here. But we disregard lessons from overseas at our own peril.

 

[Harp]

^^^^
Words matter. “Semantics” matters.

As I said I wasn't arguing semantics.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
And?

I am concerning myself with, you know, semantics, what words mean.

“Dead” is hyperbolic in the extreme.

 

[Harp]

“Dead” is hyperbolic in the extreme.

As you please.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^
As I do.

 

[3fingers]

"These Challenging Times,"

A similar phrase caught my attention many years ago and has been ongoing until the present. "In times like these."
In my 55 years here I don't believe that we've ever had a good day, at least according to the peddlers of these things.
I absolutely despise speakers of the Buzzarian tongue. It is a common affectation in my industry. While they may think that they are cutting edge, I see it as confirmation of the Peter principle at work.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I am done, DONE, D-O-N-E, with the trendy concept of "Pop Up." Pop Up this, Pop Up that, blah blah blah. It's been my experience that those who perpetuate this phrase neither know, nor do they care to know, the amount of actual physical work that someone has to do to create their "pop up" experience. There is no such thing as a "pop up" restaurant, "pop up" pedestrian mall, and god knows, "pop up" drive in theatre. Such projects appear because a lot of hard-working people assemble and operate them, not magical fairies who appear and disappear with the blink of a bourgeois eye.

 

[tonyb]

I am done, DONE, D-O-N-E, with the trendy concept of "Pop Up." Pop Up this, Pop Up that, blah blah blah. It's been my experience that those who perpetuate this phrase neither know, nor do they care to know, the amount of actual physical work that someone has to do to create their "pop up" experience. There is no such thing as a "pop up" restaurant, "pop up" pedestrian mall, and god knows, "pop up" drive in theatre. Such projects appear because a lot of hard-working people assemble and operate them, not magical fairies who appear and disappear with the blink of a bourgeois eye.

I’d bet you’ll be stuck hearing this phrase for the remainder.

If it’s the phenomenon itself that irritates more than the phrase, well, okay, that’s another matter. But the phrase pretty well describes an ad-hoc sort of enterprise we’ve been seeing more of in recent years. Some 20,000 square feet of Halloween crap for a couple-three weeks in October in what had been a supermarket or something, well, that’s our world.

But, to your point — setting it all up and taking it all down is the kind of hard work that likely won’t buy much.

 

[tonyb]

“This isn’t my first rodeo.”

The voice of authority! A man of a certain age who has learned a thing or two so listen to the old gasbag!

And “rodeo”? Is that to evoke a certain Western ruggedness? Like the Marlboro man? Or John Wayne? A manly man? One not to be trifled with?

 

[belfastboy]

I am done, DONE, D-O-N-E, with the trendy concept of "Pop Up." Pop Up this, Pop Up that, blah blah blah. It's been my experience that those who perpetuate this phrase neither know, nor do they care to know, the amount of actual physical work that someone has to do to create their "pop up" experience. There is no such thing as a "pop up" restaurant, "pop up" pedestrian mall, and god knows, "pop up" drive in theatre. Such projects appear because a lot of hard-working people assemble and operate them, not magical fairies who appear and disappear with the blink of a bourgeois eye.

Wow, now there is a term (bourgeois) that I have not heard since about the late 1960's interesting it is still in use in some circles.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Wow, now there is a term (bourgeois) that I have not heard since about the late 1960's interesting it is still in use in some circles.

I remember it being huge in the 1980's. It's a word I still hear from a diverse range of folk down here, few of them would know Marx from Ayn Rand.