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Let’s Be Honest Here
Correct me if I’m wrong, but we live in a very pop culture world: a world in which nearly everything has a popularity rank. (Aside: when I say nearly everything, what I mean is that as n gets closer and closer to infinity, the group that contains popularity ranked things gets closer and closer to containing everything.) I’m talking about music, movies, architecture, interior design, the clothing industry, etc. Unfortunately, we can classify important, sacred things in this category, such as marriage. But I don’t want to talk about any of this. What I do want to talk about is our pop-culture-vernacular. I am going to define it as the great ability we have to create and articulate phrases, slang, etc.; but that, like many other things in pop culture, we have the great ability to overuse, misuse, and even slaughter these phrases, slang, etc. One (or two) in particular that I would like to address is (and I know you’re all thinking random, but that is my good friend Garrett’s territory) let’s be honest, and equivalently, I’m not going to lie.
I’m going to be honest here, I use the phrases too, but only because I’m so in to the in things of the day, i.e., music, movies, stats, etc. so I’m not trying to bash anybody who uses these phrases. I just think that they are…for lack of a better word…silly. I mean, if I were to say, “Let’s be honest here, cheesecake is the best dessert ever…” I mean, it’s really not something that I’m going to lie about, so what I’m really saying is, “This is my opinion, and I want it to be passed off as truth, but I think cheesecake is the best dessert ever.” I could be wrong here, but when these phrases are used, I don’t think that the subject at hand is something about which the user is going to be lying!
Speaking of honesty, the real reason that I wanted to write this blog is that I truly believe that honesty is indeed the best policy. I mean, let’s be honest here. I had an experience the other day, which experience I’ve had umpteen [fanciful designation for an indeterminate number] million times, and which I wish I could say is never going to happen again. I know the human race, however, and I’m not sure I exactly trust it. The experience I had entails the following: I was going to be Salt Lake for a party of a buen amigo, so I figured I would also like to see an old friend. I texted her, but it turns out that she was going to be in Logan for the weekend (where I currently reside). I told her that I was going to be back on Saturday, we confirmed some plans which consisted of apple brewskies and movie theatres. When I got back to Logan and texted her that I was back, guess what? [“No just tell me.” --GAW] [“OK.” --Me] She never texted me back. Point: if you don’t want to do something, don’t lie about it. Don’t confirm plans with no intention of carrying them out. I’m not going to be dishonest here: I don’t care if you want to spend time with me or not. It's not going to hurt my feelings if you don't, just tell me! I’m not going to get offended if you just tell the truth!!!
Well I’m not really sure how to sum it all up, so I’m going to leave with some happy pictures. :)
9 wisecrack(s):
I love that you include stats as one of the in things of the day. I also love that I'm referenced as the one who needs to address the misuse and overuse of random. And I love that while this is your bloggy blog, we got to have a conversation while you wrote it.
Jason's blog: Guess what?
Jason's blog in proxy for me: No, just tell me.
Jason's blog: ok.
And now for my actual response to your topic. I think there are umpteen million things that are misused and slaughtered as a result of popular culture trying to make some new catch phrase. I'm starting to realize that popular culture disregards the correct or accepted way to do things, and does whatever it wants anyway. In some cases, this is actually good, and can fuel creativity in some, but what it mostly seems to mean is the masses of people who desperately want to be different and unique are all saying the same things and saying them all wrong... But I think this has always been the case. I wonder if there were more rational folks in the 50s and 60s that wondered why people said groovy all the time. It's not like things suddenly had abscesses all over... so, I guess those of us that think this way just have to silently shake our heads and hope the fad dissipates sooner than later.
Oh, and man alive, that food looks so dang good!
So in other words, the limit as n approaches infinity of popularity-ranked items equals infinity? Nice - just goes to show that calculus does have application in the "real world".
Another popular phrase that makes absolutely no sense is "I could care less". Well, I suppose it does make sense, but when people say it, what they really mean is "I couldn't care less". Argh.
By the way, what's wrong with "random"?
(Oh, and hi <waving>, this is Jenni, we met at Garrett's party on Friday.)
Kind of like you telling me that you were going to be studying all day on Saturday and that's why I couldn't see you while I was Logan? :)
yo, I found your blog from haley...I didn't actually read this post because I was feeling lazy. But I did read the superman one and I liked it. Girls are so dumb! Is it ok if I link you on my sidebar?
So the party on Friday inspired you to start a blog? Good, because this is a totally cool post. I had an old bishop who used to start almost every statement with either "Let's be honest" or "Let's face it," and it cracked me up. Think of "Let's face it, families all want to be together forever."
Once again, I'm pleasantly entertained by your blog post! It's funny how we pick things up and before we realize what we're saying, we're copying others. Both of the mentioned statements aren't necessary but they are so ingrained in my vocabulary that they're almost part of me.
My one prime example of a word that's misused...I know that Garrett will agree...is irregardless. I hear it now and almost cringe because of its wrong use.
And about the lying thing...Why is it sometimes easier to lie to a person then just tell the truth? It's as though we think lying will come across nicer. Like you said, you wouldn't be offended but the other person feels some sort of obligation...Doesn't make a whole lot of sense but I'm sure we're all culprits.
sheesh, sounds like I missed out on some party... thanks for nothing!
Hey, it's not our fault you live in freakin' Georgia!
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