Writer, Filmmaker, & Procrastinator
This is a tale of woe, a tale of misery…you may even shed a tear…
I mean I just ate a burger so I’m quite content – but what about you?
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There are a whole lot of phrases and idioms that I feel like we can all do without…I mean just because we are used to using them, and they have been around for a while doesn’t make them any less silly, or in some cases non-sensical!
Here’s a little list of everyday expressions that I think we could all manage perfectly fine without!
“I’ve got some skeletons in my closet…”
This one has always bugged me, especially as a kid as it gave me the heebie-jeebies…I mean the insinuation is that someone has dead bodies in their closet, just sitting there. Rather morbid I’m sure you’d agree. But moral implications aside, wouldn’t people suspect you immediately when you are walking around in clothes that smell like corpses?! Wouldn’t be a big secret past for long! Yeeesh!
Suggestion: “I’ve done some things in the past I’m not proud of.” OR “I’ve killed many people, and I’m a little tardy with the cleanup – so now I have a load of skeletons in my closet. It’s truly embarrassing – can we go to your house instead?”
“That’s really unique…”
That odd looking fella at the bus stop, the mole on your aunt’s face, the unexplained growth on your groin – they are all unique, and one of a kind! So because of this, the description of their uniqueness cannot be assisted or amplified by any other word – they’re either unique, or they’re not. So we can throw out the use of; so, quite, really, very, etc and every other adverb of degree as they simply don’t make sense.
Suggestion: “That’s unique.” (Now take a photo)
“I’m not gonna lie…”
Oh wait…so you have to make a little disclaimer before you say whatever it is you are about to say? I’ve been listening to your drivel and just assuming you are not a morally corrupt sith lying through your teeth…but now I doubt everything you have said before this point! It’s the same premise when people ask if you want “the honest truth” – like…WHUT?!
Suggestion: “I’m usually a massive liar – you’ve watched Pinocchio, right? Well it’s based on my past life as a professional bullshitter…but this time around I’m telling the truth. Maybe.”
“Needless to say…”
If it’s truly needless to say, then why are you saying it? Why do you have this innate need – this unbelievably strong compulsion to just say it anyway?! Can we just sit in silence, or can you perhaps make me a cake or something? I’d probably like you a lot more if you were to do that.
Suggestion: Nothing…like literally, nothing.
“It was a mutual agreement…”
An agreement is two people agreeing…and as they agreed on something, we can correctly assume that they had a mutual understanding (hehe, see what I did there?) on the subject of their agreement with one another. Urgh, my head hurts.
Suggestion: “We talked for a bit, and then agreed.”
“If someone would have told me 10 years ago, I’d be doing ____, I would never have believed them…”
If someone walked up to you in the middle of the street, presumably with a cape and a crystal ball – spouting out forecasts for your future, and telling of omens on what will be…well you would rightly be a little nervous. You’d probably run away, or at the very least pretend to be too engrossed in your earphones to hear what was been said. You may even beat the lady with her broom, and add another to the closet, who knows?
Suggestion: “I know this is going to sound totally pretentious and self-involved, but my life is way more awesome than I could have ever expected 10 years ago! Seriously, I mean look at me – I am fucking fantastic.”
“You’re the apple of my eye…”
I feel like this used to work perhaps…you know back in the day when you would get an apple and an orange in your Christmas stocking – but now? No way. There are just way better things in regular circulation that would serve as better metaphorical comparisons to the feeling of true love!
Suggestion: “I love you! You are the bacon double cheeseburger of my eye!”
(SEE! The GIF makes sense after all!)
Anyway my friends, that’s all I’ve got…but did I miss any? Can you think of some more that should have made the list?!
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As this year draws to a close, I find myself musing on all that has happened up till now – and pondering on what may come my way in the future…the funny thing is, things never turn out the way you expect – which is what makes life so interesting! Or scary depending on how you look at things…
I could have taken a lot of different pathways already, and by not following certain ones it has in turn led me on to other things – for better, or for worse!
Like when I was seventeen, or eighteen…or something, I found myself on the pathway to becoming an accountant. Yeah, exactly…ME…an accountant?! It was complete madness, as I have never been any good at maths; actually even now I find myself counting on my fingers out of force of habit! I recall in school I was often lucky to even get a C grade…that was probably because it didn’t engage, or excite me as a subject – instead I did a lot of looking out of the window, and day-dreaming, which for some reason didn’t pay dividends when it came to my exams. In English it did…which may be unsurprising, but more on that later…
But you see I wasn’t on the accountancy pathway by chance. I had purposefully plonked myself there, albeit with a somewhat faulty compass. I had my (first) girlfriend, who I loved a horrendous amount…you know, the horrible first love where you would tear your eyes out, and fry them for dinner should it ever be requested. It’s manic, and a total roller-coaster – it has ups, and downs, makes you physically sick, and leaves you full of regret afterwards. That’s why I only like the bumper cars at theme parks. Wait that sounds like a weird metaphor…
Anyway, as I was in love, like true Disney style love – and clearly this young lady was the one with which I would spend the rest of my days, and nights with – it would be necessary that I provide for my to-be wife, and our inevitable swarm of children. It sounds farcical, and ridiculous now – but at the time I was very serious about all of this. So I found an accountancy training programme with Proctor & Gamble, in which they would pay for me to do a finance degree (OH MY GOD CAN YOU IMAGINE MAN?!), whilst also earning a good salary. Sure, I would hate my working life from start to finish, and would probably eagerly await death to put an end to the constant Matrix style stream of numbers, as every day I would return from my toil to my resentful wife, and the children who hate me because I am never there – because I am at a job I don’t even like, to get things I don’t even want…but still, at least I would have money. Which is all that is really important, right? …wait, RIGHT?!
So I told my plan to one of my best friends…who in turn told me I was a fool, and reminded me in no uncertain terms that this was a silly choice to make. I tried in vain to create circumstances in which my life in accountancy would be one of excitement, and thrill…
But he came back in amazing style, bombarding me with text, after text, after text, of cruel accountancy jokes – of which most centered on the premise of how boring that career path would potentially be for me, a person with no interest in mathematics whatsoever. I wasn’t convinced, or at least I told myself I wasn’t. That is until my girlfriend broke up with me out of the blue, (leaving me utterly destroyed may I add) and I came to a new clearing in which another pathway emerged…after the soul-blackening anguish that was getting over her, of course. But after that I saw the pathways more clearly – filled with real dreams, and hopes – not made up ones that were only fueled by money, and things.
So sure I headed on with my heart as my guide, rather than my head – but I am glad I did. Even if my Mother does often hark back to those times whenever I am hard up; whether it be facing rejections, unemployment, or general urghhhhhnessss frustrations – all things that will come to writers/English graduates. She likes to reminisce, and remind me that I could be driving a “flash sports car”, and living in a “classy apartment” now, like the guys in American Psycho. Well, nerr. It’s not me.
Instead here I am, suddenly at a spaghetti junction of pathways, which stretch out, and wind in all different directions. And despite all the madness…I am happy, and I am hopeful. 2015. I am pretty much blind to what you may have to offer along the road, but I am walking with you all the same.
John Lee Taggart 