This will go the way of "...from hell," "...on acid" and "...not!" if we follow my suggested program of summary executions.
"That program of summary executions worked great," said no one ever.
1 ctd, and "that's what she said!"
Yeah, I'm relieved that people stopped saying "...NOT!"
...said no one ever. Psych! Someone actually said it! Joke's on you!
The other day the 3yo pointed at the 18mo in the tub and said, "His penis is so, so tiny!" I wish somebody had been there to appreciate my "That's what she said!"
Also, this is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TNH2jol3Hw
"Not" has been over since 1992. It seemed mildly in-jokey for, like, a week after Wayne's World came out but soon enough my aunt and uncle and school music teacher were saying it. (Kind of like, "My wife!" (which doesn't really translate to text).)
I kind of like "said no one ever." It very compactly (and hopefully wittily) conveys, "The thing you are saying in a common-sense tone of voice does not in fact make any sense."
Speaking of things nobody says, school sent home a warning about "Shrek for life, Shrek for love." Is that something I can google at work? I just don't get it.
It very compactly (and hopefully wittily) conveys, "The thing you are saying in a common-sense tone of voice does not in fact make any sense."
But no one ever uses it like that. Nobody ever uses it to point out someone else is being absurd. What people do is make up a ludicrous sentence of their own, and then include SNOE at the end. "Look! I was being absurd!" is all it means.
I think it's great that people today will use an acronym for virtually any phrase they use more than once.
What people do is make up a ludicrous sentence of their own, and then include SNOE at the end. "Look! I was being absurd!" is all it means.
I'm not sure I've ever seen it used that way.
As if! is great. As if! needs to come back.
Moby: I'm home so I Googled it. The general concept is NSFW(ish) but this is: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shrek-is-love-shrek-is-life
Also, the images in the link in 15 might be the densest collection of unfunny jokes ever to collected so densely.
Thanks. I asked my son and he just said "it's about violent sex." Which seemed like something you don't want to press for details on with a nine-year old.
Furthermore, about that same link, many of them are things that people would plausibly say, with no problem.
Ted Cruz's primary financial backer is pretty damn crazy even by the standards of billionaire goldbugs:
The warehouse full of piss is not actually the most insane bit.
This post is too next level for me. Also: I'm still working on how properly to use "next level." Eventually, I'll work my way up to Proper Deployment of "On Fleek."
15: I don't think either of our characterizations is particularly accurate with respect to those examples. The semantic content is basically: I will reveal a universal truth by stating it's opposite. E.g., "'My favorite part of laundry is the folding,' SNOE" -> "Folding laundry really stinks." In it's more acerbic form the opposite position is implicitly held by someone who is being criticized. E.g., "'Your socks look great with your sandals', SNOE." -> "You look dumb." In neither case is the point the raw absurdity of the statement.
19: To the extent that people might say these things, they would be so wrong as to render themselves absurd (said no one ever).
23: I may have characterized them poorly, but those are the sorts that drive me crazy. Said me just now.
Is ...SNOE used in speech, or only on the internet? I associate it strongly with the latter. But both "Not" and "that's what she said" are primarily spoken.
Maybe everyone will soon start speaking like social media postings so the difference doesn't matter.
Gosh, I'm so glad my cell provider texts me new offers every day, SNOE.
Seriously, if there is a way to turn off the spam texts, I sure haven't found it.
1: mumble mumble allusion to a joke something mumble.
I use "next level" all the time in both speech and informal writing. Who knows why! I didn't even know it was a thing. But e.g. I said "that's next level bad behavior" to my boss just yesterday, talking about another lawyer.
27, 28: I don't know that I ever did anything, but my provider only emails me those offers.
26: In the OP, I was just thinking on the internet.
Also, I associate 'next level' with Die Antwoord, so it is great. Specifically that short introductory video where they're standing around talking.
That introductory video is one of the most amazing pieces of art. I'm kind of just loyal to them at this point for coming out of the gate so strong.
You'll get there, Stanley! Just remember that a warehouse full of piss is never on fleek and you're partway making progress.
8: You sent me down the rabbit hole looking for the old As If! webcomic. I suspect it's no longer available, but I did stumble across the artist Amy Mebberson again. It was cool to see her doing so well after I lost track of her 5-10 years ago.
28 Wasn't there a Supreme Court case on that this week?
33: Those Pink Floyd shorts. I need those.
17: Most of them aren't even jokes, really, so much as "share if you agree!"-style affinity statements ("I enjoy bacon", "I hate Mondays", "Beards!").
"Beards!"
"Help! My girlfriend wants sex more than once a month!" said no one ever.
Pique irritation for me comes with clumsy attempts to render tone of voice and speech patterns with punctuation or misspelling. "Welp," "But that? Is not okay," certain uses of mid-sentence ellipse. "Welp" is especially galling. (Let's see if I can type it one more time.) What the hell sound are people making that sounds like a p? A glottal stop + closing your lips?
What the hell sound are people making that sounds like a p?
It's just like "whelp".
I thought it was a combination of "well" and "yep".
You close your lips, but without making much audible sound - shutting down early on the "l" sound, which would otherwise do more of a trail-off.
"Welp" conveys something along the same lines as "and that's just about all there is to it" here.
Fascinating. I think I can pronounce "help" in a way that's roughly similar to the way I might say "well." The p in "help" can lose its aspiration, or something (not a linguist; always my worst subject). Maybe I should start typing "help" as "hell" to counteract all the whelping.
I'm waiting for Werner Herzog to make a movie of that, except with the Amazon instead of a load of bread.
Yeah, I'm relieved that people stopped saying "...NOT!"
Except for Germans, but they'very been doing it a long time
Just going to give up posting on my phone
Some people pronounce "welp" with a very audible "p"--just like "help". Maybe that's not the correct pronunciation, although I'm not sure that concepts like "correct pronunciation" are necessarily meaningful in this context.
"Wait for it...welp," said no one ever.
It's one of those things that was funny once and then got used a billion times in increasingly generic ways and turned into a way for people to complain about whatever. I actually think the flagship of this kind of unfunnying-by-facebook might be Some E-Cards, which originally were pretty funny. Now they're just [old illustration] [reference to uninteresting transgression]. Oh, this Victorian-looking lady likes wine and used a curse word! Too Funny Not to Share!
Said everyone ever, more concisely, in a long list of comments before mine.
17 caused me to click on 15 like somebody saying, "This is awful, do you want a taste?" What's wrong with me?
Used too often in the sheets, said no one ever in the streets.
56: but it was sort of amazing the utter lack of humor, no?
Oh, I've got "on fleek" sussed. It's easy when you have a 17 year old daughter who's obsessed with her eyebrows. Every now and again I say, "your eyebrows are on fleek" and she's flattered and amused in equal measures.
Was "...not!" a thing before Wayne's World? Or was it...not? Either way this is hilarious.
Also, 45 and 46 get it exactly right re: "welp." I would add to those that
1. It is useful, especially when communicating by text, because your correspondent knows not to expect further communication on the topic. Contrast "wellllll," which indicates you're about to produce a wall of text
2. It is objectively less annoying than "well alrighty then" which is how this sentiment used to be conveyed.
I've never seen it used idiomatically like that! Only interchangeably with "well." "Welp, the issue here seems to be..."
I would expect "Well, the issue here seems to be" to be used introducing the topic, and "Welp, the issue here seems to be" to be used in summarizing a preceding discussion.
It's also possible that that's a totally bogus "intuition", I guess.
Wasn't there a thing on Language Log* about -p, this very tinily productive affix (wellp, nope, yep, maybe nothing else) the contents of which I don't remember? This comment will self-destruct due to lack of content.
*there was always a thing on Language Log
Yep (but the discussion of welp is limited and in the comments)
It is, awesomely, called an Excrescent Stop, if you were looking for a new band name.
Like when Mornington Crescent was closed for renovation.
I have never ever heard anyone say 'Welp'. Ever. Ever.*
* Ever.
I have never ever saw a moor. Ever. Ever. Except the once.
I wonder if my high school teachers ever feel bad about how much of my brain they damaged with poetry? Sure, it's not a big deal for most kids who either don't pay attention or won't remember. But I'm still stuck with snippets of some guy named Richard Lovelace misunderstanding what constitutes a cage.
I wonder if the New England noise that gets spelled "Ayup" fits into the Yup, Nope, Welp, pattern.
I wonder if there were rural Nazis who said "Sieg heilp"?
That's pretty much the noise Felton from Thrilling Adventure Hour makes.
I have never ever saw a moor.
As in Othello, or a high, treeless tract of land, usually covered in peat?
I wonder if the New England noise that gets spelled "Ayup" sounds like the Yorkshire noise that gets spelled "Ayup"?
I've seen Othello, but he was played by a white guy because Nebraska.
75: Is it sort of an unvoiced sigh?
I've also seen Othello played by a white guy. His name was Laurence Olivier. I don't think there's been an important professional production with blackface in Britain since, though I daresay the odd school play still does if they haven't got a black or Asian lad whose voice has broken in the Drama club.
77. No, it's a fairly clearly enunciated "Eh-oop", meaning either "Hello, there", or "I'm trying to attract your attention."
I think the New England one means, "I have acknowledged that you exist but don't ask for another favor."
I should maybe add that my entire direct experience with New England consists of one brunch in a place called "Stamford".
I've also seen Othello played by a white guy. His name was Laurence Olivier. I don't think there's been an important professional production with blackface in Britain since, though I daresay the odd school play still does if they haven't got a black or Asian lad whose voice has broken in the Drama club.
Not British, but the film of the opera Otello was in blackface, in 19-frigging-86.
They only stopped doing Otello in blackface at the Met last year, in fact. There was a whole to-do over it.
Given that Othello is supposed to be a Moor, there is more of an argument for having him played by a white guy than by a black (as in sub-Saharan African) guy. Moors are Maghrebi (and Iberian and Sicilian) Muslims, and therefore not necessarily particularly dark-skinned. Having Othello played by a West African-looking guy is as far off, geographically, as having him played by a redheaded Irish guy ("O'Thello"?).
I think the argument isn't that he shouldn't be played by a white guy but that he shouldn't be played by a white guy wearing blackface.
"O'Thello"?
Your next creative writing project?
85 makes sense.
86: I know, I know, I still haven't finished the Nixoniad. But I am almost there, really. Two more chapters to go.
O'Thello wouldn't work because as we all know the Irish don't use handkerchiefs.
I've seen Othello played by a white guy (Patrick Stewart), but not in blackface - rather, with the whole play race-reversed. It was tricky and I probably didn't appreciate all the things they were doing with it.
When he said "Engage" as he put his hands around Desdemona's throat, I thought that was a bit much.
It was tricky and I probably didn't appreciate all the things they were doing with it.
Not enough Data?
I would pay half my fortune to watch Shatner doing Othello. Not so much blackface as redface. "THAT!... handkerchief... which I so... LOVED! and ...gave thee... thou GAVEST! to CASSIO!" (makes strange manual-gear-change hand gesture)