What's a phrase you hear a lot, but disagree with?
What's a phrase you hear a lot, but disagree with?
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?
"He/she just tells it like it is" No, they are just saying things that resonate with you, but have no actual alignment with data, facts or morality. Simply saying things with no filter doesn't equal "like it is". I find it is usually attributed to, at best, oversimplified or completely ignorant statements, at worst, misleading and/or hateful statements.
"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.
It's been a millenium since I've heard it, as I no longer qualify as young.
But
"You'll understand when you're older"
I'm older.
I'm thirty.
The only thing I "understand" is that all the rules are arbitrary as all fuck, society was made up by idiots with giant sticks up their arses, and everyone should go fuck themselves.
The only "progress" I made is that I stopped hating myself for "failing at society" and started hating society for failing so many people.
"It's human nature" used to describe something horrific like war or rape.
It's not. Human nature is as when we were children, playing with friends and loving each other.
Militaries have to condition humans to do violence to each other and to follow orders from "superiors". Half of school is quashing kids' creativity and making them follow arbitrary rules because "the adults" say so.
"Practice makes perfect."
Let me tell you about my 7th grade all county band audition, where I showed up and skillfully played 40 measures of not what the sheet music said because I misread it and practiced what I misread.
"Practice" needs some kind of mechanism for feedback and correction, such as a coach or instructor.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," It's like nails on a chalkboard every time I hear it. There is a very limited context where it may be applicable, but mostly it's used to give up trying or mock someone for failing a task. Have you never gotten better at something over time? Learned an instrument? Played a hard video game? Learned to ride a bike? It stops problem solving dead and kills motivation making it less than useless. Oh and its misattributed to Einstein like every other shitty quote
"Can't teach an old dog new tricks" is one that's very pertinent to my life right now.
So, I was a pretty dedicated musician in my younger years, but I've never quite gotten around to learning how to produce music digitally. Recently, I've been trying to learn. Thing is, since I'm in my early 30s, I'm only just now hitting that age where my neuroplasticity isn't what it was when I was 20, and learning things is starting to become noticeably a little more difficult.
So, that's where I think the expression comes from. You get older, you try to learn something new, you underestimate how much more difficult learning that new thing is at your current age (because, honestly, you have no way to gauge how hard it'll be until you're doing it), the challenge gets the better of you, and now you have to admit defeat.
"Can't teach an old dog new tricks" is basically a different way of saying "No, no! I'm not owned!! I didn't lose!!!" It's a way of shielding oneself from the sting of defeat by framing it as "well, that's just the way things are when you're older." It's not that you couldn't rise up to the challenge of learning. You just cannot teach old dogs new tricks, and that's a fact. Don't you hear people say that all the time? Why would people say it so much if it weren't true? So, yeah. I didn't lose. I'm not owned.
It's an especially harsh process when you're learning to do something related to something you already know really well, and struggling with it, like I am with music production. It makes you question how well you really knew that thing in the first place. But, like I said, I'm only in my early 30s. If I were 60 and struggling to learn a new way to do something I've been doing my whole life, I'm sure it'd be wayyy more demoralizing. I'm sure I'd want to guard my feelings from that.
So, I get why the expression exists. I just don't think it holds any real weight. People treat it like it's some fact of life, but it's just an excuse. You've just gotta keep pushing, be prepared to accept failure when it rears its ugly head, and then muster the energy to get back up and get back on as many times as you can before you're beat. Easier said than done, though.
"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.
When people try to give bad news to someone and say, "there's nowhere to go but up" as if they know that person has reached rock bottom.... That has never been true in my life. So many times have I seen things get shittier and shittier for people. Fuck that stupid cheer up bs.
"Boys will be boys" Oh yes, what deep insight, nicely expresses the lack of parenting that let little Billy here become a FUCKING BULLY that regularly kicks, punches and intimidates other children. Even worse when adults agree that "shitty and violent" is just how boys are, you know boys will be boys.
Well done being a role model guys, not only does that excuse the bully, it openly communicates to the victim that 1) he's allowed to be like that, 2) they should be bullies too and 3) nobody has any intention of actually helping them and changing the situation.
And then you make them shake hands afterwards and both have to apologize, the bully and his victim.
GRRRRRRRRR makes me so angry! Complete abdication of your responsibility to actually parent your little monster.
"Can't be helped."
Your attitude is why things don't change.
“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.
"Well it can't get any worse" And "Well, you gotta do something"
The first is almost always dead wrong. Trust me, you can make anything worse.
As for the second, it's shockingly coming that in a given scenario, the best action is to not do anything different at all. It may seem like things are bad and something has to change, but changing your strategy at this point can still definitely make things worse. Sometimes inaction is the correct action.
"I'm really great at reading people/spotting BS/etc." It seems like almost invariably this is said by people who are quick to make assumptions about people and as a result, are terrible at figuring out what someone is actually thinking.
The people who loudly proclaim that they "don't care what anybody else thinks!" almost always care a great deal what other people think. The ones who truly don't seldom announce it.
"... tells you everything you need to know" if you have all of my same prejudices.
"[Thing] is a game changer!"
Almost always used in the context of brand-speak/commercial marketing. What's the game, guys? Corporate propaganda? Cause no, using an app to book a handyman that pays to be advertised on your service, or buying microplastic encapsulated detergent is not a goddamn "game changer" for anyone, besides the shareholders.
"Collectivist society" and "Individualist society"
Whatever doesn't kill you only prolongs the inevitable!
“Religion is a personal choice.”
Rarely is that true.
life is beautiful.
no, it's not. it's an ugly, parasitic process that accelerates resource consumption merely for its own pointless existence. the heat death of the universe will come all that faster only because of the presence of life.
and, for sure, humankind is the pinnacle of this selfish and greedy outcome of biological evolution.
"its all about calories in, calories out".
"which begs the question ..."
I hate this phrase a lot. First, it comes from the term 'begging the question' which is a stupid name for a particular type of logical fallacy that doesn't even make sense for its intended meaning. But no one uses in the intended way anyway. They use it to mean "raises the question" or "prompts the question".
As in: John hasn't been to work for a couple days, which begs the question 'is he sick?'". No it doesn't beg the question, it raises it. You beg for something, so you can beg a person for money or beg a dog to stop barking, etc. but you can't beg a question for anything.
So it's a doubly stupid phrase that makes me cringe every time I hear it whether it's used "correctly" or not.
I'm so sorry! He/She's (never done that before)/(usually so much better behaved)!
Said by idiot dog owners who either let their dogs run off leash, or don't pay enough attention when they are leashed, which then attack people or other dogs.
If you don't have enough time or care to raise your dog properly such that it obeys basic commands and is familiarized with the world beyond your apartment/yard, you should be exercising far, faaar more caution and restraint.
Personally I don't think such people should even be allowed to own dogs if they can't train them properly.
So many people just take their dogs to a dog park and let em loose!
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Permanently Deleted
“It’s all good”
Who you kidding, chief?
“History repeats itself” or “history doesn’t repeat itself, but rhymes”. If that were the case then it would be pretty easy to predict the future.
The reality is humans have evolved to try to find patterns in a given system. It’s what made us really good hunters and excellent tool builders.
"You can not buy intelligence"
But the product of appearing intelligent is sold: private Education. Also you need to be able to afford the right condition: Not starving to death to appear intelligent, afford food & afford some water without lead contamination (since lead in the water lowers IQ), lead pipes where used for drinking water in poorer areas ... Also research and innovation costs lot of upfront capital investment and connections nowadays.
"God will provide".
"it's time to drain the lizard"
'Don't reinvent the wheel'. If the earliest (re-)invention of the wheel, known to us, was flawless, it wouldn't have been reinvented so many times. There will always be new obstacles, new scenarios and new expectations. I get it. It's intended as a reminder to look up existing solutions for a problem before starting entirely from scratch. But, especially in software development, where this phrase is often used, this reminder is rarely necessary...
If "disagree with* can be interpreted as "irritates me"
"Not gonna lie" "If I'm being honest" "To tell the truth" (older)
Ugh.
They're such idiomatic crutches. Just fucking talk. Say what you're gonna say. If you need an "um" just say that. Don't waste my brain's clock cycles interpreting those phrases only to realize they're meaningless...
"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
God I hate that quote. I can't tell the difference between a spruce and a pine, but that doesn't make them indistinguishable, just means I don't know what the fuck I'm looking at. Magic and tech are definitively distinct. Our monkey brains might mistake one for the other, but like the spruce and pine, that does NOT make them indistinguishable.
Edit - Bruh what's with the downvotes?? We're here to express an unpopular opinion, cut me some slack!