Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

btman at grotto11 dot com

Read These Too:

InstaPundit
Steven Den Beste
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue
Ravishing Light
Rosenblog
Cartago Delenda Est

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Tuesday, February 19, 2008
08:51 - *"That's just wrong* on SO many levels"**	(top)
I'm going to start charging a toll on people who deploy this meaningless, hackneyed phrase. It's as though people still think it conveys some kind of useful information or contributes to the group's discourse on some piece of observed oddness any more meaningfully than going, "That's... weird". Better yet: if someone says this, I'm going to immediately turn to him and say, "Oh yeah? List some."

1. Dave - 10:49 Tue 2/19/2008 ( email )

I�ll use �that�s wrong� or even �that�s so wrong�, but I don�t think I�ve ever used that particular phrase. If I have, it�s only sparingly.

2. BlogDog - 11:55 Tue 2/19/2008 ( email | web )

I will happily join you in scouring the Earth of that phrase if you will help me rid it of ""Dass whut I'm talkin' bout!" (especially from white people) and "That's how I roll." How you *roll?* Let's see how you bounce back after a shot in the chops.

3. Chris Cogdon - 12:49 Tue 2/19/2008 ( email )

Once you've done with that one, lets all jump on the use of "Well I'll be" :)

OF COURSE you'll be, how could you not? :)

4. wch - 13:00 Tue 2/19/2008 ( email )

Jim Gaffigan's use of it was apt: the joke was about Jesus getting a pair of socks as a gift, and Jesus replies, "You know I'm dying for your sins, right?! Yeah, but THANKS FOR THE SOCKS! They'll go great with my sandals, what am I, German?!" And that's when a voice from the audience (assumed to be German, Christian and possibly a sock-gifter?) is said to remark, "I'm offended on so many different levels..." From JG's CD "Beyond the Pale", and highly recommended.

5. bob - 01:47 Wed 2/20/2008 ( email )

Brian, nice try, but this is too little, too late.

6. Chris Cogdon - 12:03 Wed 2/20/2008 ( email )

<blink>I've cracked the code!!!</blink>

Ln = Vv × Tp / Df

Where Ln = Number of levels it's wrong on
Vv = Vertical speed of elevator
Tp = Time it takes to say phrase
Hf = Distance between floors of adjacent levels

7. Sigivald - 12:42 Wed 2/20/2008 ( email )

Every time I've used a phrase like that, I've had at least two different things in mind.

(I also like to say things like "that's ten different kinds of crazy". And while I might not have ten in mind, I've got more than one.

And let's not forget "crazy as a sack of cats".)

8. Dave - 12:52 Wed 2/20/2008 ( email )

Chris: �Well, I�ll be!� is a bowdlerized version of �Well, I�ll be damned!� suitable for airing on radio�the mass media of the phrase�s heyday�without sending Aunt Vera into a tizzy. Yeah, it doesn�t make much sense on the face of it, but a lot of idioms don�t.

9. Brian Tiemann - 13:20 Wed 2/20/2008 ( email | web )

It's just that in general it seems a mark of involvement and mutual respect, to make the effort to come up with something original to say in a situation like that�something to keep the mental wheels rolling, rather than just relying on prepackaged clich�s that you can mix-and-match into a conversational patchwork of agreed-upon patterns, like a compression algorithm reducing everything to a catalog of repetitions of well-loved phrases like "That's gotta hurt!" and "Don't go there!"

"Ten different kinds of crazy" is a good example. It's fairly unique to begin with, and then beyond that it's easily tweakable, just by altering the number or the synonym for "crazy". Likewise, the "That's wrong on so many levels" thing could easily be transformed on the fly to "That makes my inner child cry" or "That makes me question even humanity's usefulness as snack food" or something. You know, just something new or at least unusual, to give your conversation mates to know that you're putting a little effort into the proceedings. It just seems like the gentlemanly thing to do.

10. Wonderduck - 20:22 Wed 2/20/2008 ( email | web )

People who use "That's just wrong on SO many levels" are as dumb as a box of hair.

11. PlanetaryGear - 04:59 Thu 2/21/2008

I have been presented with statements on a couple of occasions that were so non-sensical that I was forced to reply that they were "not even wrong" but never wrong on so many levels... ;)

12. gmsc - 08:30 Mon 2/25/2008 ( email | web )

Over at boing-boing ( http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/23/spongebob-squarepant.html ) we have a siting of "wrong on so many levels! Of course, in this case, it's a SpongeBob SquarePants rectal thermometer, and I don't think you would actually want to hear how many levels on which it is wrong.

13. Brian Tiemann - 08:55 Mon 2/25/2008 ( email | web )

Yeah�it's one thing if it actually is wrong on multiple identifiable levels, as in the case of a Spongebob rectal thermometer. But if you're just saying it because you heard it once and it got a laugh and you think it sounds funny, well... then I shall invoice.