Of course lawyers are often necessary to sue insurance companies that don’t want to live up to their coverage, or to sue the uninsured. My objection isn’t to lawyers per se, it is to those lawyers who want clients whose first concern is how much money they can get.
On first read I found this off-putting. Reminiscent of job interviews where the interviewer gets all offended if the person being interviewed asks about money.
And on second reading?
Yeah, exactly. I kind of think I agree in the context of ambulance-chasing lawyers. Just weird how off-putting it struck me.
There is the practice of law as the pursuit of justice, the practice of law as the pursuit of your clients’ desires for enrichment regardless of legal merit, and the practice of law as the pursuit of the lawyer’s personal desires for enrichment regardless of legal merit or their clients’ interests.
Unsurprisingly, Door #3 are the lawyers we all love to hate. Most businessmen want to hire a Door #2 operator and cannot comprehend the thinking of Door #1 lawyers. A lot of law students start out trying to be Door #1 and lose their way over the course of a 40 year career. Others stay door #1 to the end, but they rarely get rich doing so.
I gots no prob with most phrases fabricated out of whole cloth. Every generation has its own vocab and that’s groovy, dude. Adding color to our otherwise drab lexicon is vocabulous. This is most important with the young ankle-biter generations who need their own brocabulary. It’s a wordrobe they luvs to rock. It forges camaraderie, so it’s all good, y’all.
What gets me cheesed is when phrases are used pretentiously in order to demonstrate intellexual superiority. That’s simply egotude gone wild. That ain’t cool, yo.
I also get verklept when one generation [mis]appropriates the g-bonics of another generation in order to appear chill and with it. Yeah, no…thanks, but no thanks. The geezer gens are most guilty of this and it’s a Debbie Downer for me, padre. It makes me go all Lewis Black.
If, on the other mitten, the pretentious or hipster phrases are used ironically or sarcastically and they are well played—hey, no problemo, homie.
It’s past my nappy time and I gotta see a man about a horse, so adios amigos. It’s been real.
Well stroked. 
A true tour de farce of the genre. I am in awe. Bravo @Tibby!
Huh??? Tickety-boo, that’s just the way I speak IRL.
Aye.
Good point. The best I’ve been able to come up with is: “(statement), AND I DON’T MEAN THAT FIGURATIVELY.”
Similar to the LITERAL/FIGURATIVELY discussions are the discussions about “Begging the question.” Of course there’s the original meaning - and the way that many people use it now.
We need to put this phrase on the shelf, and invent two new phrases where the meaning can’t be mistaken.
4realz and lol?
That’s a bit wordy. I propose these alternate terms for the purpose of brevity:
Figuratively
New term: “Not really.” Can be contracted simply to “NOT!”
Example: “You blew my mind…not really” or “You blew my mind…NOT!”
Literally
New term: “For real.” Can be contracted simply to “f’real.”
Example: “Toby’s head for real exploded” or “Toby’s head f’real exploded.”
If at any time during a faculty meeting, the speaker utters “As a this, that or other…” be prepared to endure bragging or chiding.
I’m so glad I’m retired!
This thread is “so fun”.
And for years it hasn’t been an appropriate thank you unless followed by “so much”.
That’s another bete noire. The “NOT” at the end of a sentence comes across as an impolite way - luring the listener down the garden path only to turn the sentence around at the end.
But, an impolite and unexpected turn-around [Martha Stewart] is a good thing. [/Martha Stewart]
All I know is I really do not want any of those [redacted]ers reaching out to me for comment.