I am sure many Brits will back me up here. You often hear this phrase used in gossip. It is when people are having a conversation about a conversation that took place in the past. Following is an example to illustrate the usage.
“I said it wasn’t me, and she turned around and said it was you and you know it. And I turned around and said it can’t have been me because I was somewhere else. And she turned around and said…”
I hear these conversations and I have this comical image of two people having a conversation, and literally swivelling no the spot each time it’s their turn to speak.
Probably just an idiomatic usage. It makes me think about a hypothetical, similar exchange between two Americans:
“I’m like “it wasn’t me”, and she’s like “it was you and you know it”. And I was like “it couldn’t have been me because I was somewhere else”. And she was like …”
Brit chiming in here, we definitely do say that all the time, and it is indeed a feature of gossipy conversation - to say someone “turned around and said” something implies that they’ve got a bit of a nerve really. I can remember being told off for it at primary school. Goodness knows where it comes from though, sorry I can’t help there.
I think people just say it without thinking, but needing some kind of delimiter to separate What I said from what the other person said.
It usually appears when the conversation being described is an argument or debate - and I think ‘turned around and said’ probably evolves out of some general sense of opposites (“I said it was, but he turned around and said it wasn’t”), perhaps combined with the idea of the conversation being something like the ball in a game of tennis, where the dialogue itself goes (turns) back and forth.
“At the end of the day…” is a far more annoying idiom, IMO. It used to mean “and here’s where I sum up my whole statement…”, now it’s just meaningless filler, like “I mean’ and ‘like, y’know’”.
I mean, I got out of bed and, like, yknow, couldn’t decide what to eat, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to choose something for breakfast.
The one that amuses me is “to be fair”. Somehow it has shifted from the logical “to point out a mitigating circumstance”, like “Rooney’s had a terrible game, but to be fair he did have a leg amputated yesterday”, to a rather illogical way of introducing a critical statement, like “to be fair, Rooney’s had a terrible game”. Maybe he has, but how is that being fair? It’s being harsh, isn’t it?
I was going to say pretty much the same thing. It’s got an element of gossiping women having conversations along the “Would you believe the nerve of her?” line; you don’t hear it as often here as you do in NZ (or the UK, evidently), though.
The “turned around and said” thing sort of implies that one person has got the upper hand in a verbal exchange, but then the seeming loser of the bout…“turned around and said”, and reignited the whole thing.
Personally* I think “Turned around and said” is worse than “At the end of the day” and “To be fair”, the latter of which I sometimes use. In its defence it is meant to stress that what is about to be said is a statement of what I believe to be the fair answer or solution.
I sometimes want to say “If you say ‘Turned around and said’ one more time I’ll stick a fork in my own face”
ETA: Forgot to add this bit:
*Beginning a sentence with the word ‘Personally’ could count as one. Like beginning with “I” isn’t enough to indicate that an opinion is about to be expressed. (Well perhaps it isn’t. Perhaps “I think” could merely be a statement of probable fact, such as “I think this car has plenty of fuel”)
Americans sometimes say this too, in just the way you mean. But I’ve never heard it used repeatedly in the description of a conversation as the OP suggests, nor does the speaker ever indicate that they’re the one who “turned around and said…” either. I guess we use it more narrowly than where it probably originated, like the slang use of “dead [insert adj].”
We use that phrase a lot up in Canada - enough that it doesn’t twig my anglicisim meter at all.
A similar construction (and more particularly English) is “only went and…” – serves a similar function, and is particular to the same type of anecdotal conversation.
Brit here and I cannot back you up; I’ve never heard it used except in the literal sense of someone actually turning round to face the speaker. Perhaps it’s a Manx idiom?
No it isn’t Manx. I’ve lived in England for most of my life and I’ve hear it there too.
Admittedly it seems to be limited to young females (teens to early twenties) so perhaps you’re lucky enough to be avoiding over-hearing those conversations.
As a Beatles fan from way back, I’ve noticed that Pete Best says this all the time in interviews, but I’ve never heard or read about the others saying it.
Come on, pundits such as Alan Hansen, Alan Shearer, Ron Atkinson use “to be fair” all the time, as a kind of general purpose introductory prefix, kind of like “in my opinion”. Usually followed by something spiteful and unfair.
‘To be fair’ is used so often in football parlance, across all contexts, that it’s now beyond parody - it in no way corresponds to the literal meaning of the phrase.
'- Didn’t think Anichebe had a good game today against ManU
He’s shite, to be fair to the lad. He should be playing for Accrington Stanley.
'You could write what Sir Alex knows about football tactics on the back of a postage stamp
I’m in the US and I’ve heard the “turned around and” phrase in the sense of someone being hypocritical or contradictory in behavior. However, it’s never “turned”, it’s “turns”. Usually said by boomer-aged women.
“Tiffany said she hated that guy and never wanted to have anything to do with him ever again. So what does she do? She turns around and marries the bastard!”
“To be fair” sounds like it’s a way to soften harsh statements, much like our “bless his/her heart” as in “Bobby is a sweetheart of a boy, but dumber than a sack of wet concrete, bless his heart.”