According to Wikipedia a platitude is a trite, meaningless, or prosaic statement, often used as a thought terminating cliché, aimed at quelling social, emotional or cognitive unease. The statement may be true but its meaning has been lost due to its excessive use.
With this in mind what platitudes do you wish people stopped using?
My example is the expression “Everything happens for a reason.” This is true since it’s basic logic and reason at work but this doesn’t mean there’s some magical or metaphysical reason for events whether mundane or important or positive or negative. The universe doesn’t exactly dole out rewards, punishments and harsh lessons.
I work on a US military base and I have yet to meet a vet or active duty that gives a shit. When they smile back or say, “thank you,” they’re just being polite.
Every single time we do a thread on scams, someone will post, “You can’t cheat an honest person.”
Of course you can. There are all kinds of scams that rely on the victim’s honesty and desire to do the right thing to succeed. The platitude isn’t just wrong, it does active harm in discouraging victims from coming forward and helping to expose the scam.
Fuck yes. I used to have a friend who, for some weird reason, went from being a really good conversationalist to being completely reliant on platitudes. At about the same time my wife was in a two year cancer battle and I heard more than enough stupid platitudes.
I’m disappointed to see “Thank you for your service!” on the list. My Zeyde (Zeyde being Yiddish fro grandfather) Herman was in the military. As a very young kid, I couldn’t process how somebody so great and caring and loving could become a professional killer. As I grew, I came to realize he didn’t join the army to kill. He joined to be part of a purpose greater than himself, to learn skills, have comradery (sp?) travel to exotic parts of the world, help the people there, teach their kids about American cartons and give them his dessert ration. His joining in the army wasn’t in conflict with his good nature. It was an extension of it.
THAT is what I mean when I say “Thank you for your service.”