October 15th, 2010 / 8:16 am
Random

Possible Literary Origin of Most-Often-Uttered Phrase on ESPN “It is What it is.”

Sentence One of V.S. Naipaul’s A Bend in the River:

“The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.”

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12 Comments

  1. Steve

      I don’t watch much ESPN, but I’m sick sick sick of his phrase in daily life. Makes sense that it would become a sports cliche. Isn’t Naipaul supposed to be a major prick, especially to women?

  2. deadgod

      butters cotch

      ‘no idea’ is not the same as ‘the wrong idea’ or ‘a confused idea’ or ‘an incomplete picture’. everything perceptible causes cognition. even unintelligible things, when they mark the mind, become entwined in, by definition, drastically limited cognition. of what can be seen or heard, of what is said, there is no ‘no idea’ to have.

      there might be one thing you have ‘no idea’ of – ‘no idea’ itself. i have only a nanoquantitative idea of how to say ‘i have no idea of no idea’ and not have the expression collapse to ‘no idea’ itself:

      poof

  3. herocious

      Yeah, I also heard he wasn’t friendly.

  4. deadgod

      Tautological resignation is hateful – a way of making personal suffocation into a smothering contagion.

      A similarly toxic dismissal: “I have no idea . . .” (Unless it’s true literally.)

  5. stephen

      you are not allowed to oppose the invasion of iraq unless you have an alternative plan that convinces me

  6. stephen

      or the removal of troops. “do you know what i am saying?” —butters

  7. Owen Kaelin

      Ahh… to be nothing.

  8. Pete

      Yeah, I’ll bet Naipaul is highly popular in the towel-snapping men’s locker room known as ESPN.

  9. deadgod

      convinces you that it is a plan or convinces you that it is a good plan or convinces you that it is an essentially ‘alternative’ plan or convinces you that it is a better plan than which ‘invasion of iraq’?

  10. deadgod

      butters cotch

      ‘no idea’ is not the same as ‘the wrong idea’ or ‘a confused idea’ or ‘an incomplete picture’. everything perceptible causes cognition. even unintelligible things, when they mark the mind, become entwined in, by definition, drastically limited cognition. of what can be seen or heard, of what is said, there is no ‘no idea’ to have.

      there might be one thing you have ‘no idea’ of – ‘no idea’ itself. i have only a nanoquantitative idea of how to say ‘i have no idea of no idea’ and not have the expression collapse to ‘no idea’ itself:

      poof

  11. Daniel Romo

      Actually, I think “Our backs are against the wall” is uttered more.

  12. deadgod

      . . . they really came to play . . . it was gut-check time . . . they left it all on the field . . .