I must have been reading some commentary on the use of the English language last week, but I really can't recall where. It made me stop and think about the absurdity of some of the idoim that is evolving in nour klanguage.
Have you stopped to consider the phrase 'to be perfectly honest'? Here's some web commentary on it's now generally accepted meaning. But .. if you stop and think about it, there might be another meaning somewhere in there.
If you need to say 'to be perfectly honest', doesn't this imply that having to state this now means that at other times you haven't been perfectly honest?
Um, if you haven't been perfectly honest at other times, then his must mean that you have been telling lies at other times.
Rats!! To be perfectly honest ... oh Doh!!!!
Study in Contrasts
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Last week I read two news stories in such stark contrast to each other that
flummoxed me so much I almost blew a gasket thinking about the repercussions.
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16 years ago
'To be perfectly honest' is really just a label for something you are about to say that is rather more candid-sounding than what you normally say. It used to be so labelled in fact: ' To be perfectly candid...'. But I say 'candid-sounding' because what you are about to say is not necessarily honest and not necessarily candid, neither. It may represent a close approximation of what you think at the moment (which would be OK), but is just as likely to be - to be perfectly candid - a load of bull.
ReplyDeleteThanks for following my wargames blog, Robin.
Cheers,
Ion