Enough with “tongue firmly planted in cheek.” The original expression is “tongue in cheek”. Someone once injected “firmly planted” for added effect, but it has completely supplanted “tongue in cheek” and is now just used when the point would be better made with the original.
I hate the sound of it. “I say that, tongue in cheek” just means “I’m just kidding.” Fine.
But tongue firmly planted in cheek? What’s that mean? You’re SUPER-kidding? It’s adds this obnoxious layer to it, like a big wink, a big nod and pointing a big finger and pulling a fake trigger at who you just kidded. “Hey there kiddo. I’m just joshing ya, ya know, tongue – firmly planted – in cheek.”
Here’s an idea: why don’t you firmly plant your tongue in someone’s ass.
It’s like saying “deja vu all over again”. It’s just “deja vu”. Someome added the redundant part at some point to be a little more funny. It worked once, maybe twice. Now its deja dumb all over again.
While I’m at it, I’m dredging up this old chestnut: enough with the “I can’t believe no one has said. . .” Hey, shitfuck! You fuckin’ say it. I’m a doper. You’re a doper. You fuckin’ say it. Don’t ask why I didn’t say it.
And enough with apologizing for your rants with the “minor” and the “lame” qualifiers.
It’s not the “pit for everything more important than Naziism”. It’s just the pit. People pit their pimples here. People pit cancer here. It’s the fuckin’ pit. There’s no qualifiers. Grow a set, write your pit and live with its lameness. Don’t be an EXTRA PUSSY and hide behind it.
I’m with you on “I can’t believe no one has said this yet.” It comes off as insulting, as if to say pages and pages have gone by, but you are the only genius who has noticed some obvious point, and then you have the nerve to point out that you are the only one that has noticed it. Kind of like saying everyone else is a bunch of fucking idiots.
And, while I understand that some people want to qualify their pittings as “lame,” I agree that it’s unnecessary. Just pit, baby. No need to apologize.
As far as “tongue firmly planted in cheek” goes, I’m with you not so much. I agree that the first guy that used it was clever, then it became cliche. But it doesn’t irritate me as much as you.
Someone once told my wife that there’s a little bit of truth in everything we say, meaning that assholes that insult you, then follow it up with “Geez, I was just kidding,” are actually telling you their true feelings just a little bit.
Of course, that’s a big steaming pile of horseshit. But I think that some posters want to make absolutely sure that no one thinks that they are being serious at all, so they add the qualifier “firmly planted.”
I think people will stop doing this as soon as other posters stop coming in and saying “lame rant” whenever they think the rant doesn’t match up to their standards.
It’s often felt to me that the Pit is not a place to rant, but to have your rants graded. Just a thought.
I agree here. I wouldn’t feel the need to qualify my rant as lame, or mild, or weak if I didn’t see so many posters going in and thrashing someone else’s pitting as exactly those things. Then you have the people who come in and say “Oh my god, there are people starving in the world and you’re complaining about this???” That one really drives me crazy; I’m not allowed to have a bad day or be irked by something because somewhere someone has problems much larger than mine? If that’s the case, then I submit that no one has the right to bitch about the irrelevance of a rant either, because… there’s people starving out there!
I agree with the OP almost entirely. The expressions he’s pitting are overemphatic and overused, and grading Pit rants as if they’re supposed to achieve some standard of importance is just plain asinine.
I do, however, want to post a (largely idealisitic) defense for “I can’t believe no one has mentioned…”. I will grant that 19 times out of 20 that I’ve seen this phrase, the poster has been questionable in their justification for its use. For example, if I were to pop into a Cafe Society thread entitled “The Best Bands Ever”, and I posted post #39 saying “I can’t believe no one has mentioned Tears For Fears”, it would be stupid, because TFF is my favorite band but admittedly very few others’.
Once in a blue moon, though, you get a situation where you honestly cannot believe nobody has mentioned the thing in question. I can’t think of any examples offhand, and I’m not sure how to go about searching for them, but imagine a hypothetical thread entitled “Sci-Fi movies with Harrison Ford in them”, and you get to page two, and nobody’s mentioned Star Wars. That sort of thing doesn’t happen much, but it does happen, and in those very rare cases, I think the person who eventually comes along with “I can’t believe no one has mentioned…” is justified in doing so. Most of the time, though, yeah…the poster just needs to shut up.
Incidentally, Trunk, why are you ranting about this, anyway? I stubbed my toe earlier, and that hurt, and you’d rather rant about improper use of expressions than actual physical human suffering? You utter heartless bastard.
Try actually planting your tongue in your cheek and saying aloud “I think that’s a fabulous idea.” If you use the proper tone of voice, the result is hilarious. I’m going to have to try using that in the future and see if anyone catches on.
I’m not saying anybody’s pitting is weak, especially this one, but I am wondering exactly how the whole “firmly planted” thing got started… a question for Cecil?
People, the OP is ranting against using cliches. Isn’t that a pretty standard writing tip?
It seems to me that the OP expects everyone to be extremely conscious of their WRITING, and think of themselves as WRITERS. I don’t think that’s gonna happen.
And I don’t think any such railings will get indifferent writers to stop using cliches.
What bothers me about that is, more often than not, it’s said on page 2 or beyond of a multi-page thread, while whatever-it-is was mentioned in one of the first five posts! So it’s the pointer-outer who ends up looking like the fucking idiot.
My own personal irritant is people who pop in just to say, “Heh…I thought the thread title/the post just above this one said [something suggestive or bizarre]!” I’ve come very close to starting a Pit thread titled, “I don’t CARE what you thought it said!” Only thing stopping me was the drudgery of creating all the relevant links.
'Tis not as bad as it was, though. Back in 2000, I think it was, there was practically an epidemic of posters saying, “Heh heh…I thought this thread was going to be about sex!” “I washed my dog today” — “I thought this was about sex!” “I have a headache” — “What, no sex?” But I guess Dopers were generally a lot hornier four years ago. There have been a lot of marriages, divorces and babies born since then.
I can’t believe no one said what a lame rant this was. (tongue planted firmly in cheek, held steady with guy wires until the tongue’s roots are strong enough to support the tongue on its own.)
While I really like the phrase “little expository farts,” I have to disagree. I said “Just my opinion” in this very thread. To me, it’s just another way of saying “YMMV” without having to explain what the hell “YMMV” means. It ain’t necessarily the gospel truth. It’s just my opinion.
I was listening to a piece on the radio about, if I remember correctly, the Patriot Act provision that allows law enforcement officials to monitor who’s checking what books out of the library. A librarian who was unhappy about the policy provided a quote for the story. She said if we allowed this to stand, we would “have our feet firmly planted on a slippery slope.” Neither the context nor her tone of voice suggested that her tongue was planted in her cheek, let alone firmly.
