Today I want to talk about things we commonly say that are untrue. Well, not strictly speaking untrue as such, but so mindlessly tautological that they qualify as bullshit all the same.
Now, I'm not talling about actual lies. The things I'm going to discuss here are things that are often said even by people who are Models of Rectitude and would never, ever even tell you your bum didn't look big in that. Most of these are true, but just plain stupid, but the moast egregious is necessarily false.
Let's start with the former category.
True, but Utterly Pointless
It's Always Darkest Before The Dawn.
Well yes, of course it is. It is hardly going to be darker AFTER the dawn, is it? That's the nature of dawn, it GETS LIGHT. You plonker. This saying, intended to be comforting, is just about the most mindless thing in the English language.
There is No Smoke Without Fire.
True enough; that's what smoke is, after all: the output of fire. However, this saying, true on its face, is mostly used to justify the spreading of unsubstantiated gossip, and these days, to try accused persons in the media, thereby removing or severely damaging their ability to receive a fair trial, a thing considered in civilisd societies to be a basic human right. It's a saying that anyone with a conscience really ought to banish from his lexicon.
Nothing Succeeds Like Success.
This saying (American, of course) is so meaningless as to be offensive. Success is, in fact, succeeding. It is like saying that water is wet.
It Is What It Is.
This one is the ultimate tautology. I shouldn't knock it as I can myself be caught saying it whenever I want to virtue signal my extreme, and fictional, stoicism. Nevertheless, it is mindless and very bad.
Necessarily Untrue
It'll Brush Off When It's Dry.
This saying always causes me to howl with outrage, although because of the intention behind it, it's usually a silent, internal howl. Nothing ever really does. The idea is that something wet, or semi-wet, has defiled something, if you wait until whatever it is dries, you can just brush it off with no harm done. This is nearly always untrue, because of the nature of wetness. Wetness causes things to soak in. It is , of course, possible that a wet substance such as mud, or vomitus, or the blood of your enemies, has landed on some impermeable substance, such as leather, or plastic. Then it would indeed brush off harmlessly when dry. But in such a case, you can just bloody well wipe it off while it's still wet, can't you? If the offending matter is wet, and has landed on anything porous, or woven, or whatever, it is going to soak in, a feature of the physical propreties of water. It has to do, I believe, with molecular bonds or something. Not a physicist, but you can probably get any high school science teacher to explain it. And once it has soaked in, it isn't going to just come off with brushing, because it is in there, in the pores, between the weave, whatever.
I was going to have a lot more of these, but I can't keep on. I have to watch my blood pressure these days, or apparently my brain will squirt out of my ears or something.
Following up to my Death Cleaning post - I've started. Nothing spectacular yet, but at least one item has gone out every day, either to the rubbish or to the Blessing Box.
Finally, a word about my colleague's new book:
"Do not look at Borrogg with the Fiery Eye!"
Too late; they looked. The resulting quest begins here.
Get TOND, BOOK ONE: THE SONS OF TLAEN RAS-ERKÉLTIS by Steven E. Scribner today!
https://www.amazon.com/Tond-
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