Blah blah blah, not so much. Mild rant.

I don’t know why but I am starting to get really angry whenever I see the sentence construct the goes like this:

                    I find myself doing x; doing y , not so much.

for example: He’s real good at singing; dancing, not so much

Its use seems to be exploding on this board.

Maybe I associate it too much with a certain personality type, but I just hate it. I want to smack the shit out of whoever uses it.

Did someone in pop culture use this construct, causing the viewing sheep to grab onto it?

Stop it already; it doesn’t make you clever or witty.

Heh, heh. This is gonna get good in a hurry.

(And, on reflection, I think this first came to my attention via John Stewart. Matter of fact, when I use it (and I do, too much), I usually do it in his voice.)

That sure is a silly thing to get all worked up over.

Some rants about speech mannerisms I find myself in agreement with; this one, well you know… :smiley:
It actually is a fairly useful construction, serving to contrast two (usually) related ideas. It’s not nearly so odious as say, verbifying nouns, or misusing apostrophe’s.

It’s a Jewish thing. Jon Stewart popularized it.

Actually, that took longer than I thought it would.

Jewish it may be, but popularized by Jon, not so much. I remember quite clearly being yelled at in school (in Britain) for using it twice in an essay (c. 1995)

Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. . . . :smack:

I think Paul Reiser used to use it a lot in “Mad About You,” circa that vintage.

Again, quite possible, or even probable, but that wasn’t on in England either.

I recall it being used on Mad About You and Friends. That might be why it irritates you so.
I use it. I’ve used it on this board in the last twenty four hours. I probably made it even more irritating by typing it as- notsomuch. I wasn’t trying to be clever or witty. Nor was it a ‘Oh, look how cute I am, lulz’ kind of thing either.
So, what kind of personality type uses this phrase, and it begs to be asked, if it’s ‘exploding’ on this message board, perhaps you’ve surrounded yourself with personalities that you can’t stand.

baa.
On edit, I see Twickster beat me to it.

I didn’t say Stewart invented it, I said he popularized it. The reason that there’s been a 438% increase in people casually saying it is directly attributable to Stewart’s constant use of it on his immensely popular show. He often uses it as a joke in itself, akin to the “…not!” plague of the nineties.

“George W. Bush is a great president…ehhhh, not so much!”

Language rants are what keep me coming back to the SDMB, I swear.

A slight twist, if I may? My mother in law lived in Germany for a while and it infected her English (As Spanish has mine, but that is another story, no?).

She taught her children to mis-conjugate their verbs.

The dishes need washed.
The floor needs vacuumed.
The book needs read.
The speaker needs throttled.

My darling husband just laughs when I, the former English major, tell him how it drives me up the wall. I even looked up the origin (thats how I know its from German) and still, he does not care. If he continues, is it justifiable homicide?

to be! they need TO BE verbed! or verbing!

Isn’t this part of an American dialect too? It’s common somewhere in the Northeast, but I can’t recall exactly.

Pittsburgh and the surrounding environs, I think.

This is definitely a silly thing to get bothered about. Jews have probably been saying it for centuries. It’s a little trendy right now. It’ll go away soon.

I thought it was a Pittsburgh thing, but I’m not sure. Apparently, it’s also a Scottish thing. My google skills are decent - my memory? Not so much.

ETA: And apparently my Previewing sucks, as well. :smack:

Some cultures have catchy sayings. Jewish culture, not so much.

For some reason in my head I see Mel Brooks saying this.

Fairly common here in Wisconsin, especially Up North