# I pit cognitive dissonance
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [September 27, 2004, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277 "2004-09-27T07:15:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/1 "2004-09-27T07:15:28Z")
The phrase. Hate it with an Orwellian passion. I will never use it. Again.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/2 "2004-09-27T07:28:16Z")
Yeah, I…
…what were we talking about?
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### Author:  [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/3 "2004-09-27T07:35:51Z")
I don’t get it. I think it’s quite a useful _concept_.
Do you mean you’re sick of people using it as a junk phrase?
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### Author:  [@Gadfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadfly)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/4 "2004-09-27T07:46:06Z")
Uhh…
You just don’t grasp the concept, that’s all.
(wanders away)
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/5 "2004-09-27T07:47:16Z")
Hehe. I get it; the phrase is _supposed to mean_ ‘continung to believe something you yourself know or suspect to be untrue’, but it is quite often seen in debate to mean ‘refusing to agree with what I say when I am so obviously right’.
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### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/6 "2004-09-27T07:50:16Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#):
>
> Yeah, I…
>
> …what were we talking about?
Would you stop it, **Bryan**!
**Aeschines** , it’s just so posy and such a nasty little put down. Ripe for being used by people with no idea what it means with a smug smile on their face.
Some phrases have this visceral effect on all of us, non?
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/7 "2004-09-27T08:00:04Z")
Non.
Bless your heart, are you coming down with something, **Roger**?
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### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/8 "2004-09-27T08:08:44Z")
Just a chronic case of fuddyduddyitis, I suspect, **Zoe**.
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### Author:  [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/9 "2004-09-27T08:13:08Z")
Why don’t we just stick with the more accessible “he’s full of shit.”
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/10 "2004-09-27T08:17:35Z")
**Roger** , sometimes nasty little putdowns are warranted. Such was the case when the phrase _cognitive dissonance_ was used about an hour before your post.
Like Reggae music, do you?
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### Author:  [@Atticus\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atticus_Finch)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/11 "2004-09-27T08:24:17Z")
Anything in particular inspire this rant, **Roger**? Any egregious misuses of the word out there that you’d particularly like to point us to? I don’t know, it seems to have been used correctly the last few times I’ve seen it…
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### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/12 "2004-09-27T08:32:57Z")
> [@Sublight](#):
>
> Why don’t we just stick with the more accessible “he’s full of shit.”
Exactly!
With a phrase like c…d…, what will happen is that people will be using the phrase to mean different things, as sure as eggs is eggs. You’ll get the people who know what it really is intended to mean (which, let’s face it, is not obvious from the sum of the parts). Then, you’ll get people who thinks it means a hundred other things (from “you’re spouting a load of bollocks” to "why don’t you agree with me?).
It’ll fast become a marker of a certain type of intellectual (and I wager political) stance - can’t see too many “conservatives” using it. Give me a crock of self-serving shite any day.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/13 "2004-09-27T08:48:50Z")
You’re complaining about that phrase, and yet you use this:
> [@roger thornhill](#):
>
> as sure as eggs is eggs
Physician, heal thyself!
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### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/14 "2004-09-27T08:57:39Z")
> [@jjimm](#):
>
> Physician, heal thyself!
It’s a step up at least from the last Bible verse that was aimed in my direction. Can’t remember which thread, but I had to undergo quite a bit of therapy after that one.
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### Author:  [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/15 "2004-09-27T08:57:47Z")
You’re complaining about the use of the trite phrase “as sure as eggs is eggs”, and yet you use this:
> [@jjimm](#):
>
> Physician, heal thyself!
People in glass houses.
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### Author:  [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 8:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/16 "2004-09-27T08:59:53Z")
> [@Desmostylus](#):
>
> People in glass houses.
Remove the plank from thine eye!
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### Author:  [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/17 "2004-09-27T09:03:08Z")
> [@jjimm](#):
>
> Remove the plank from thine eye!
Go and do thou likewise.
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### Author:  [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/18 "2004-09-27T09:05:29Z")
A stitch in time saves nine.
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/19 "2004-09-27T10:13:53Z")
> [@Ilsa\_Lund](#):
>
> A stitch in time saves nine.
Fuck off.
[sub]No, you did nothing to deserve this. It’s just that it was going down a steady slope of civility and relevance, and we’d arrived at the bottom. It had to be done.[/sub]
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### Author:  [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2004, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-cognitive-dissonance/266277/20 "2004-09-27T10:59:12Z")
I salute your noble deed, sir.
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