# I hate people saying "use your common sense". **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 2, 2012, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697 "2012-11-02T19:16:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![blueslipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@blueslipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blueslipper)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/1 "2012-11-02T19:16:12Z")
I need some help with these people saying this. I would like to show them that saying this phrase - “use your common sense” is worse than useless. I would like to point out all the ways that common sense is wrong - common sense tells us for example -Heavier things fall faster than lighter; the sun revolves around the earth etc. Also how do I convince people that saying that phrase- “use your common sense” to others is condescending and unhelpful to the vast majority of people. When I hear people say “use your common sense” or “they should use their common sense” at my work, I politely remind them that we work in a bank, and that most of the banks systems (whether customer or work) are not logical or understandable through common sense. They ususally get the point. So please - some help with how to respond positively and constructively to these people. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/2 "2012-11-02T19:28:37Z")
Just say thank you and move on. I can’t offer more because I would be one of those people who used to say what you are complaining about. I don’t say it anymore, but explaining why I no longer say it might be considered rather condescending. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/3 "2012-11-02T19:35:20Z")
One of my favorite quotes, which I heard from Simon Singh (though I think he was quoting someone else) is “science is the fight against common sense.” If the world were immediately, obviously understandable by common sense, we wouldn’t need science. Science is a systematic method designed primarily to prevent ourselves from being fooled by our own instincts. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/4 "2012-11-02T19:44:11Z")
Sayings are never meant to be taken literally. Therefore there’s no way to tell people that the literal meaning of their saying is wrong without looking pedantic and condescending. And if you’re in a situation where people tell you to use common sense, then 99.9% of the time you’ve just done or said something really stupid. “Use your common sense” has no meaning other than “get a clue, you idiot” so telling them that you in fact don’t have a clue is not a sound strategy. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/5 "2012-11-02T19:44:21Z")
People that follow their GPS into a lake needed to be told to use their common sense. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/6 "2012-11-02T19:48:46Z")
When confronted with people talking about “common sense” I tend to reply that in my experience, sense is not common. ---
**Author:** ![tomcar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tomcar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomcar)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/7 "2012-11-02T19:54:26Z")
I would chuckle, smile and say " i need specifics on this one." Just ingratiate yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/8 "2012-11-02T20:01:59Z")
@ OP, if this is a common enough phrase that is directed at yourself that you feel the need to have retort, then maybe you should consider the criticism as valid and do a little introspection, instead of attempting to dismiss it. ---
**Author:** ![sidecar\_jon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@sidecar\_jon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sidecar_jon)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/9 "2012-11-02T20:11:59Z")
Its an old english legal term. A crime might be something that offends against the “common sense” meaning commonly held ideas of morality. So while there might not be a written law on some form of blasphemy, it offends the common sense so was ruled to be illegal and punishable. So that illiterate people were held to know what laws applied to them even though they had no knowledge of the written law such as they were. So one might say it is an outmoded term and meant to imply a greater knowledge and morality on the part of the quoter… ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/10 "2012-11-02T20:12:32Z")
I agree with those who say that “Use your common sense” is a loaded phrase. It means that the person speaking believes that the person spoken to is failing to consider something important, yet not difficult to perceive, in the event or situation in question. So common sense really has nothing to do with your science examples, in my opinion, especially the first one. Heavy objects do in fact fall faster than light ones, except in places where there is gravity but no atmosphere, which is a list of places that does not include the earth. ---
**Author:** ![blueslipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@blueslipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blueslipper)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/11 "2012-11-02T20:28:00Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > @ OP, if this is a common enough phrase that is directed at yourself that you feel the need to have retort, then maybe you should consider the criticism as valid and do a little introspection, instead of attempting to dismiss it. It is not often said to me. But when it is I usually consider the person who said it to me as an idiot. I agree with the person previously about how science is a fight against common sense. But not just science- should include other things. Why on earth would I be thinking ‘I am not using my common sense. I must start to use it. Listen to all those people telling me to’? ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Doom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Dr\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/12 "2012-11-02T20:41:16Z")
> [@blueslipper](#): > > Also how do I convince people that saying that phrase- “use your common sense” to others is condescending and unhelpful to the vast majority of people. “Jones from Accounts Receivable is married to a 500-pound transvestite, and seems very sexually active with his ample wife. Should I use **his** _common sense_, or someone else’s _common sense_? Whose _common sense_ should I go by?” There is no such thing as _common sense_. Everything is relative, based on what occurs to each individual. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/13 "2012-11-02T20:52:09Z")
> [@RadicalPi](#): > > So common sense really has nothing to do with your science examples, in my opinion, especially the first one. Heavy objects do in fact fall faster than light ones, except in places where there is gravity but no atmosphere, which is a list of places that does not include the earth. Heavy objects also fall faster when there is no atmosphere as well. Gravity makes objects fall towards one another rather than one simply falling towards the other. The effect is usually negligible when comparing say a basketball and a bowling ball dropped on the moon but the effect is still there. The bowling ball will pull on the moon just a little more than the basketball and will hit just a little faster. See common sense does work…as long as you are nitpicky enough. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/14 "2012-11-02T21:33:16Z")
> [@blueslipper](#): > > When I hear people say “use your common sense” or “they should use their common sense” at my work, I politely remind them that we work in a bank, and that most of the banks systems (whether customer or work) are not logical or understandable through common sense. They ususally get the point. For the most part, I think this is the only real response - that what may seem common from one person’s frame of reference is not common from another person’s. You have to establish the context before you can properly just whether something is common sense or not. What you’re really getting at are cultural differences. “Common sense” for an American includes things like the rule of law and fixed prices, yet much of the world’s “common sense” is that bribes, family connections, special allowances and negotiations are far more important than written law or prices. Or compare the differences between an Eskimo and a Bedouin when it comes to common sense about clothing and wilderness survival. Both are well-adapted to their homeland… but neither would live very long if they switched places. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/15 "2012-11-02T21:33:56Z")
> [@sidecar\_jon](#): > > Its an old english legal term. Cite? The Oxford English Dictionary knows of no such ‘legal’ sense. Here are the senses given in the OED with earliest known usage. > [@](#): > > 1. An ‘internal’ sense which was regarded as the common bond or centre of the five senses, in which the various impressions received were reduced to the unity of a common consciousness. Obs. > > 1543 B. Traheron tr. J. de Vigo Most Excellent Wks. Chirurg. i. i. f. 3/2, They [sc. eyes] were ordeyned of nature in the former part [of the head]..that they might carye visible thinges to ye commune sens. > > 1. > > a. The endowment of natural intelligence possessed by rational beings; ordinary, normal or average understanding; the plain wisdom which is everyone’s inheritance. (This is ‘common sense’ at its minimum, without which one is foolish or insane.) †Formerly also in pl., in phr. besides his common senses: out of his senses or wits, ‘beside himself’. > > 1535 G. Joye Apol. Tindale (Arb.) 36, I am suer T[indale] is not so farre besydis his comon sencis as to saye the dead bodye hereth cristis voyce. > > b. More emphatically: Good sound practical sense; combined tact and readiness in dealing with the every-day affairs of life; general sagacity. > > 1726 N. Amhurst Terræ-filius (ed. 2) xx. 100 There is not (said a shrewd wag) a more uncommon thing in the world than common sense..By common sense we usually and justly understand the faculty to discern one thing from another, and the ordinary ability to keep ourselves from being imposed upon by gross contradictions, palpable inconsistencies, and unmask’d imposture. By a man of common sense we mean one who knows, as we say, chalk from cheese. > > c. Ordinary or untutored perception. Obs. > > 1598 Shakespeare Love’s Labour’s Lost i. i. 57 To know..Things hid and bard from common sense..is studies god-like recompence. > > d. As a quality of things said or done (= ‘something accordant to or approved by common sense’). > > 1803 J. Mackintosh Def. Peltier in Wks. (1846) III. 270, I ask you again, Gentlemen, is this common sense? > > 1. The general sense, feeling, or judgement of mankind, or of a community. > > 1596 Spenser Second Pt. Faerie Queene iv. x. sig. I6, That all the cares and euill which they meet, May..Seeme gainst common sence to them most sweet. > > 1. Philos. The faculty of primary truths; ‘the complement of those cognitions or convictions which we receive from nature; which all men therefore possess in common; and by which they test the truth of knowledge, and the morality of actions’ (Hamilton Reid’s Wks. II. 756). > > 1758 R. Price Rev. Morals (ed. 2) 81 Common sense, the faculty of self-evident truths. > > 1. attrib. (the two words being always hyphened). > > 1854 E. Forbes Lit. Papers i. 43 Common-sense views are the last to take hold on men’s minds. Obs. after a sense stands for Obsolete. As you can plainly see, nothing about a legal sense. ---
**Author:** ![drew870mitchell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drew870mitchell/32/3946_2.png) [@drew870mitchell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drew870mitchell)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/16 "2012-11-02T21:45:39Z")
“Use your common sense” doesn’t actually help anyone solve any problem at all. It’s a way of getting around the rules of decorum. When someone says someone showed a lack of “common sense” what they really mean is “that person is much stupider than the average (common) person.” If it makes you feel any better it looks like the phrase is on a [long, slow exit from common usage.](http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=common+sense&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=0&share=) IMO it already has a slightly old-timey, obsolete feel. ---
**Author:** ![SantaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/da6949/32.png) [@SantaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SantaMan)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/17 "2012-11-02T21:48:40Z")
I rarely say those words (but think them more often) however, one less derogatory use of the phrase would follow “You are overthinking this issue. You are a smart guy. Follow your common sense” I also might use it for those that made it necessary to put the “don’t eat the peanut shells” on the bag (The Master once talked about this). My mother would have said “use the sense God gave you” as a general admonition, reminding me not to get too caught up in my own drama. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/18 "2012-11-02T22:29:36Z")
I don’t use it too much, but if I were to use it I’d prefer to use it in a way that meant, “Stop trying to beat your head on the wall, take a moment, and _think_.” So many people go through life by rote and routine. There are those who’d spend half a minute jamming their thumb angrily on an elevator button while hanging on the doors is a sign saying “Out of order.” “Use your common sense” means frickin’ pay attention. I try not to use the phrase “common sense” any more. I vastly prefer “wisdom.” It’s the ability to perceive the world around you, think about it, and react intelligently. And that sure as hell isn’t common. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/19 "2012-11-02T22:43:07Z")
Moving this to IMHO from GQ seems the common-sense thing to do. 😉 Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697/20 "2012-11-02T23:23:04Z")
> [@drew870mitchell](#): > > “Use your common sense” doesn’t actually help anyone solve any problem at all. > > It’s a way of getting around the rules of decorum. When someone says someone showed a lack of “common sense” what they really mean is “that person is much stupider than the average (common) person.” I disagree for most uses of the term. I use the saying frequently with my kids when they ask about something they want to do or someone else is trying to feed them a load of bullshit. They can usually figure things out on their own when reminded that most things follow the general rules of common sense and even adults can benefit from that reminder as well. If you want to learn to use a chainsaw safely, you don’t need a physics education or an engineering degree and you certainly don’t need a disclaimer from a lawyer. You do need to be reminded to stop and think carefully about what you are doing at all times and follow some simple rules. The same thing applies to lots of situations whether it is a potential scam offer you get or how to deal with an emergency. Most people have enough knowledge to know what not to do and that is usually enough. ‘Use common sense’ is a perfectly legitimate reminder of what to do and what not to do based on the general knowledge. It doesn’t always apply but you can work through most situations if you follow it. It isn’t condescending at all. It is just a simple reminder that sometimes people do stupid things even though they should know better so stop and think before you act on something important (or don’t act on an obvious problem). We have all been guilty of not doing that sometimes. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-hate-people-saying-use-your-common-sense/639697.md?page=2)