iiwii
There’s a phrase that I keep hearing and it’s an annoying little phrase. “It is what it is.” Who started that stupid cliche? I even saw a shirt made to look like the Wii logo…but says “iiwii” in large letters…meaning…you guessed it, “It is what it is.”
I found a few tidbits about that phrase on the web…these weren’t composed by me…I can’t take credit for them…but thought they were interesting enough to share:
Urban Dictionary says:
It is what it is:
#1) A cliche, popular within the circles of coaches, business execs, and those of us who just want to say “It’s happened. ‘I’m going to forget about it. I’m going to move on. There is nothing that can be done about it.”
Voted by USA Today as the #1 cliche of 2004
“We showed up and gave 100%, and it is what it is.”- NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson, after finishing second in the Nextel Cup championship. (AP, Nov. 22)
“Never in a million years did I think we would be 1-5 at this juncture, but it is what it is.”- Mike Minter, safety for the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, on his team’s start this season. (AP, Oct. 24)
Is this a better game than before? That’s what a lot of people are asking. Perhaps the more precise question should be: Is this what hockey is going to evolve into? And if so, will the fans, the players, the coaches, and the general managers embrace it as NHL hockey?
“It is what it is,” said Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock. “It’s a new game.” (AP, Oct. 23)
Some guy named Jantzen wrote an article about cliches. He says:
“It is what it is” means what it means. Depending on context, it can be a statement of resignation or of defiance, but in neither case does it connote the optimistic good humor of “It’s all good.” If anything, it expresses the absence of emotion, the abdication of feeling. Although it seems to imply value-neutrality, that misses the point; it’s not so much that something is neither good nor bad, but rather that its quality simply isn’t relevant, that it’s not worth the energy to make a value judgment.
To put it another way - it doesn’t matter what you think about it because you can’t do anything about it anyway. It was in this spirit that Al Gore invoked the phrase after winning the popular vote and possibly the electoral tally as well: “I strongly disagreed with the Supreme Court decision and the way in which they interpreted and applied the law. But I respect the rule of law, so it is what it is.”
So, what do you do when you get to a place when you realize that it is what it is?
