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Notes on CatchWhich catchphrases should be "thrown under the bus"?

By Ron RosenbaumPosted Friday, June 27, 2008, at 7:49 PM ET

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Matt Feeney examined SportsCenter catchphrases. Bryan Curtis celebrated the advertising value of Seinfeld catchphrases. Alex Ross reviewed The Big Lebowski in the context of the immortality of indie film. Jonah Weiner grouped together rappers and musicians who repeat themselves so often that they create their own catchphrases. Timothy Noah credited Jack Abramoff for the birth of a Washington catchphrase. Eric Lichtenfield deemed Die Hard's "Yippee Ki Yay Mo—" the greatest catchphrase in movie history. And here are the results of Slate's action-movie one-liner contest.

Finally, there's Stage 4: terminal obsolence, dead phrase walking. Take "at the end of the day." It kind of stuns me whenever I find someone still saying "at the end of the day" with a straight face. What are they, stuck on stupid, as they say?

And then there's the danger that arises when Stage-4, zombie catchphrases that have previously been confined to a subculture escape their niche. We recently saw this happen with "It is what it is," which used to be an all-purpose coach-speak sports-night cliché. But since then, it's broken out and become a wise-sounding but profoundly empty surrogate for wisdom and perspective all too often used by idiot consultants and talking-head political pundits who seek to make themselves sound both worldly and gurulike: "It is what it is." To which one wants to say, using a monosyllabic catchphrase that is a particular favorite of mine and deserves its longevity: "Duh."

But if "It is what it is" is over and "broken"—a favorite catchphrase of Mitt Romney, who argued that "Washington is broken" (duh)—what about "It's all good"? This one belongs in the faux-mystical category I'd call BSBS: Buddhist Sounding Bullshit. I admit I still have a shameful fondness for "It's all good," although now mainly ironically. (Does anyone recall that "It's all good" can be traced back to a Hammer song circa 1994? The year of the Rwandan genocide. But, hey, "It's all good.")

At least "It is what it is" doesn't suggest that the is-ness in question is good or bad; it's just that you can't argue it doesn't exist. Is "It is what it is" pop existentialism, at once an acknowledgement of the tragic immutability of being and a challenge to us to "take arms against a sea of troubles," as some well-known guy once said? Or is it an Eastern quietism, a rationale for resignation?

A lasting catchphrase often earns its longevity because it has some philosophical question buried in it that hooks us. "It is what it is" is something I struggle with: How much should I accept in an "It's all good" way? Much of the time I'd much prefer if "it" isn't what "it" is. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. As they say.

And what about "not so much"? As in, I really admire Sontag's essays. Her novels, not so much. Has that moved from Stage 2 to Stage 3 or even the dreaded terminal Stage 4? I still like "not so much." Not as much now. But I liked "not so much" when I first began to come across it. And it still works for me if used skillfully.

In fact, about six months ago, I became slightly obsessed with "not so much"—so much so that at one point, I asked readers of my blog to see whether they could trace its earliest use. I was pleased when one commenter cited some research by my friend Jesse Sheidlower, the American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and a witty writer on language, who weighed in with a 2004 citation that read, "A romantic thriller? Interesting. Starring Josh Hartnett? Not so much."

But then another commenter claimed that "not so much" had been used on the sitcom Mad About You, which ran seven years starting in 1992. Anyone else have an earlier "not so much" sighting? I don't see it as likely to have been in the Lincoln-Douglas debates, but you never know.

And what does the success of "My bad" mean? It's brilliant in its way. I know I've been seduced by the way it infantilizes and trivializes whatever it ostensibly, forthcomingly apologizes for. Cheap absolution. (Check out Paul Slansky and Arleen Sorkin's great work of humor and moral outrage My Bad for hilarious examples of people finding the stupidest most self-incriminating ways possible to say, "My bad.") The culture of offense and incorrectness had created a counterculture of "My bad" bad apologetics.

"The optics"—as they say—don't look "all good" for the future of "My bad" (and "the metrics"—as they also say—probably don't, either), but I think it's still in Stage 3: a usable gray area.

Another blogospheric favorite that occupies that gray area: "Oh, wait ..." Proper usage: Something obviously wrong is attributed to an opponent and then a mocking "Oh, wait ..." is appended.

I like it and haven't gotten tired of Slate's Mickey Kaus using it (did he originate it?), but I feel as if I can't use it myself because it's one of those catchphrases that seems already to belong to other bloggers—branded, if you will. (Which brings up an issue for another day: Is using catchphases at all, if not plagiarism, then secondhand or second-level—or second-rate?—thinking and writing? Or is it just enjoyable swimming in the communal pool of culture?)

Then there's the whole category of commercial phrases that cross over into common speech. I promise not to mention the over-obvious "Where's the beef?" Oh, wait ...

More recently, we've seen the variations on "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," apparently destined for the Catchphrase Hall of Fame, as my friend Jaime Danehay pointed out to me. She found a scholarly blog that noted more than 100,000 variations on it. Why that phrase? Because it's a variation on "My bad," isn't it? The demand for clever-sounding ways of excusing bad behavior is as infinite as our capacity for bad behavior. As Mike Myers used to say: "Behave!"

To my mind the most unfortunate recent catchphrase is also the title of the new public-radio show: The Takeaway. Excellent show from what I can tell, but that title! So Dilbert! So Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. So sales-boosting seminar at the airport Marriott.

Really, if you "drill down," to use another corporatism, there's something kind of industrially extractive about "takeaway," isn't there? The impulse to reduce everything to a PowerPoint action item? All the most interesting things in life are the things you can't extract and "take away."