# Completely meaningless phrases that are common **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 19, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120 "2014-03-19T22:47:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/21 "2014-03-20T07:03:06Z")
Decorator colors. Gourmet kitchen. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/22 "2014-03-20T11:22:07Z")
> [@Canadjun](#): > > I wouldn’t quite agree. What you might instead see is “Free kitten”. I’d say “Free to good home” is almost but not quite meaningless because the current owner is rarely going to check. The author of the sign is basically saying “We really do care about Mr. Snuggles. Please take care of him.”, as opposed to “Would you like this cat? OK. Here.” When we adopted one of our cats, we had to go through an interview, fill out a questionnaire, and a home visit by a “cat social worker” who checked that our existing kitty was well taken care of and in particular, not declawed. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/23 "2014-03-20T11:43:23Z")
“Two scoops of raisins”. Really? Exactly how big is the scoop? “Get a second one free, just pay separate shipping and handling” In other words, it costs more to ship and “handle” your item than it is worth. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/24 "2014-03-20T11:45:09Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > On ebay: “near mint”. Also “vintage” and “retro” for anything old. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/22080_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/25 "2014-03-20T11:48:31Z")
_“Call in the next 10 minutes and you’ll get…”_ That commercial has run 6 times in the last hour - who exactly is resetting the timer to 10 minutes every time it runs in every market across the country?? :rolleyes: Yeah, I know, but it’s still inane. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/26 "2014-03-20T11:52:22Z")
> [@GreenElf](#): > > “condition: brand new with shelf wear” or variation thereof is increasingly used for online sales That’s a perfectly valid and useful description. It means the item has superficial scratches from handling, but no actual wear from use. For things like machine parts, it means it’s never been installed. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/27 "2014-03-20T12:00:09Z")
> [@AppallingGael](#): > > Additionally: “Part of a complete breakfast”. That’s a legal disclaimer, to avoid being sued under truth-in-advertising laws. It means “this box doesn’t contain everything you see in the picture.” ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/28 "2014-03-20T12:21:33Z")
I hate it when my grad students use vague, meaningless qualifiers in technical writing. The most common offenders are “state of the art” and “high quality”. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/29 "2014-03-20T12:49:03Z")
“Perfect.” :dubious: Ok, are you judging me? And what do I win now? Your absence? “Sorry…?” _spoken in a hand-on-hip tone with foot-tapping_ What are you sorry for? If you didn’t hear me you’d tell me, right? Or is this some passive-aggressive version of a confrontational challenge one step up from “I dare you to say that to me again…”? ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/30 "2014-03-20T13:39:53Z")
Court hearing ? There’s a lot of censoring and then the beak says some stuff that indicates he/she didn’t hear anything that wasn’t censored anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/31 "2014-03-20T13:55:52Z")
“Quality” means nothing without a qualifier. “Quality clothing/TVs/tires/furniture/perpetual-motion machines is yours at Acme.” Everything has quality, whether good, bad or indifferent. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/32 "2014-03-20T14:00:56Z")
I seriously doubt anyone lives in any of those cafes that sell “homemade” pie. JC Whitney, which sells cheap car accessories, used to send out big catalogs in which everything was made of “heavy duty” plastic. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/33 "2014-03-20T14:09:51Z")
A lot of these are sort of goofy shorthand for concepts that we all understand. Things like “highway miles” are stretching it a little, but even so, if you said that a car had 60% highway miles, the understood meaning is that 60% of the miles on the odometer were ones spent at a relatively high steady speed on a highway of some sort, and that the other 40% were spent in a more herky-jerky stop and go fashion at lower speeds, which is much harder on the car per mile than driving a steady 80 mph. Of course, people can use the ambiguity to cheat you and say “60% highway miles” when in reality 60% of the miles were racked up on the highway… in stop and go traffic. Technically, they were “highway miles” in that they were driven on a highway, but it does go against the spirit of the phrase. “Died instantly” is another of these that is _prima facie_ stupid in that everyone does die instantaneously, but in common usage, it’s meant that someone went from alive and healthy to stone dead in an extremely short time, not in some sort of drawn out, suffering-laden way. The ones that get me are the oxymoronic ones like “homemade pie” made from scratch at a restaurant, or ones that are mealy-mouthed attempts to avoid common phrases like “pre-owned” instead of “used”. Those are just dumb and annoying. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/34 "2014-03-20T14:24:30Z")
“Can I ask you a question?” Don’t you mean another question? One I hear more lately is “even”. As in “We can expect rain today across the area, including East Chicago, Hammond, Merrillville, and EVEN Gary.” ---
**Author:** ![LionelHutz405](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lionelhutz405/32/536_2.png) [@LionelHutz405](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LionelHutz405)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/35 "2014-03-20T14:31:18Z")
“Executive”. Usually used to describe real estate. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/36 "2014-03-20T14:35:58Z")
“For Sale By Owner” Really? You mean I can’t buy it from someone that doesn’t own it? ---
**Author:** ![PaperBlob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/58956e/32.png) [@PaperBlob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaperBlob)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/37 "2014-03-20T14:40:39Z")
> [@nevadaexile](#): > > **It is what it is** - Probably the most useless homily ever spoken. Of course “it is what it is”…what else would it be? I came in here to say this. I hate, hate, hate, this phrase! ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/38 "2014-03-20T15:38:37Z")
A couple of people have said that everybody dies instantly, but I disagree. I think that almost nobody dies instantly. Most people die over the course of several seconds or several minutes. Of course, it depends on what you mean by “death” / “dying” (and “instant”). Someone can be “clinically dead” due to a stopped heart and respiratory failure without yet being brain dead. And they can be brain dead without yet being metabolically dead. I think the concept of death is fuzzier than generally assumed. Poetically, life itself has been described as a slow dying. But even if we reject that extreme viewpoint, I think it’s fair to classify dying as a process that usually takes some time. ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/39 "2014-03-20T15:52:18Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > “For Sale By Owner” Really? You mean I can’t buy it from someone that doesn’t own it? I think the point there is that it’s being sold directly by the owner, as opposed to via a dealer or agent. Not quite useless. My pet peeve is “chemical free”. Nothing is chemical free, unless you’re talking about deep intergalactic space, and even that has a tiny amount of hydrogen per cubic meter. INTERGALACTIC CHEMICAL ALERT! ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2014, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120/40 "2014-03-20T16:13:34Z")
> [@Dervorin](#): > > I think the point there is that it’s being sold directly by the owner, as opposed to via a dealer or agent. Not quite useless. > > My pet peeve is “chemical free”. Nothing is chemical free, unless you’re talking about deep intergalactic space, and even that has a tiny amount of hydrogen per cubic meter. INTERGALACTIC CHEMICAL ALERT! For a house, maybe. For a car, not really. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-meaningless-phrases-that-are-common/684120.md?page=3)