Sunday, June 27, 2010

#27: The Phrase "It Is What It Is"



Like yada yada yada of the '90s and wubba wubba wubba of the '80s, the aughts needed a disposable phrase to use as a dismissive form of punctuation, or as a stopgap, between 'like' and 'you know'. IIWII lacked the whimsy of its predecessors, reflecting the post-9/11 pre-recession dyspepsia of a generation convinced that America's course was now determined by a chaos theory whose primary variables were some arid sheep farmers and their neighbors' split-level ranch being reclaimed by National Bank of Schindler.

USAGE:

This: "This book report on 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' fails to consider the malaise of post-Soviet Czechoslavakia as it relates to Tomas's relationships. But it's due in 3 hours. It is what it is."

Not this: When the mind can take itself as an object it is what it is.

Usage Note: In lighter moments one might substitute "That's what she said". Most people in the aughts believed they came up with this joke before it was popularized by the television program "The Office".

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