pundits, stop saying "Look"
pundits, stop saying "Look"
Auggie27
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
#1pundits, stop saying "Look"
Posted: 3/31/08 at 2:25pm
Want to add gravitas to a banal or generic musing, to sound informed, authoritative, expert, or merely arrogant? Before you make a declarative statement on virtually any subject, take a half breath and spout a patronizing "Look" first, your dip in volume, or pitch or vocal inflection italicizing the word to make clear your impatience with the attenuated ramblings of everyone in your presence.
It's the new spreading virus of punditry, the affection du jour. Not only old school types, like Pat Buchannon and Donna Brazile, but talking heads everywhere who want to suggest a cutting-thru-the-bs directness otherwise lacking in discourse.
In a culture addicted to the overuse of "like" to sustain equivocation and vagueness, we have media darlings embracing the opposite syndrome, working overtime to sound definitive.
Look, if you want someone to shut up and take you seriously, you'd better, like, have, you know, something to say we haven't heard 40 times today.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
Updated On: 3/31/08 at 02:25 PM
#2re: pundits, stop saying 'Look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 2:27pmThe same can be said of "you know" and "folks;" Doris Kearns Goodwin remarked on the use of the term "folks" on MEET THE PRESS a few weeks ago. She thought it a condescending remark and I've come to agree.
#2re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 2:28pmauggie, now you know as well as i do that the populace has become attuned to that word used in that manner. look, it engenders a pavlovian response in the cerebellum that cues the audience that the statement that follows it is the no bs, low-down, straight poop.
r.i.p. marco, my guardian angel.
...global warming can manifest itself as heat, cool, precipitation, storms, drought, wind, or any other phenomenon, much like a shapeshifter. -- jim geraghty
pray to st. jude
i'm a sonic reducer
he was the gimmicky sort
fenchurch=mejusthavingfun=magwildwood=mmousefan=bkcollector=bradmajors=somethingtotalkabout: the fenchurch mpd collective
...global warming can manifest itself as heat, cool, precipitation, storms, drought, wind, or any other phenomenon, much like a shapeshifter. -- jim geraghty
pray to st. jude
i'm a sonic reducer
he was the gimmicky sort
fenchurch=mejusthavingfun=magwildwood=mmousefan=bkcollector=bradmajors=somethingtotalkabout: the fenchurch mpd collective
#3re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 2:30pmi use folks, all the time, lil. i have for years and i've never meant it as a condescending term. "you people" is reserved for that.
r.i.p. marco, my guardian angel.
...global warming can manifest itself as heat, cool, precipitation, storms, drought, wind, or any other phenomenon, much like a shapeshifter. -- jim geraghty
pray to st. jude
i'm a sonic reducer
he was the gimmicky sort
fenchurch=mejusthavingfun=magwildwood=mmousefan=bkcollector=bradmajors=somethingtotalkabout: the fenchurch mpd collective
...global warming can manifest itself as heat, cool, precipitation, storms, drought, wind, or any other phenomenon, much like a shapeshifter. -- jim geraghty
pray to st. jude
i'm a sonic reducer
he was the gimmicky sort
fenchurch=mejusthavingfun=magwildwood=mmousefan=bkcollector=bradmajors=somethingtotalkabout: the fenchurch mpd collective
Auggie27
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
#4re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 2:31pm
Yes, and anyone who's read THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA knows how toxic "folks" can be. Susan Jacoby takes that on in her new book about anti-intellectrualism, the age of American Unreason.
And while typing the post for this thread, I heard it twice on MSNBC. It's catching.
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#5re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 2:32pmDoris Kearns Goodwin was talking about "Folks" Last week on TV? I heard Lynne McTaggart say the exact thing back in the '80's.
#6re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 2:38pmknow what, folks? i'm sick and tired of academiocs telling me what i can and can't say. now i stood by while they told me i could not refer to a raccoon as a "coon" nor refer to the act of rigging legs and borders in a theatre as "hanging blacks" but i am not giving up "folks" and you people will just have to deal with it.
r.i.p. marco, my guardian angel.
...global warming can manifest itself as heat, cool, precipitation, storms, drought, wind, or any other phenomenon, much like a shapeshifter. -- jim geraghty
pray to st. jude
i'm a sonic reducer
he was the gimmicky sort
fenchurch=mejusthavingfun=magwildwood=mmousefan=bkcollector=bradmajors=somethingtotalkabout: the fenchurch mpd collective
...global warming can manifest itself as heat, cool, precipitation, storms, drought, wind, or any other phenomenon, much like a shapeshifter. -- jim geraghty
pray to st. jude
i'm a sonic reducer
he was the gimmicky sort
fenchurch=mejusthavingfun=magwildwood=mmousefan=bkcollector=bradmajors=somethingtotalkabout: the fenchurch mpd collective
#7re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 2:40pm
And how many times have I gotten the evil eye for calling my shovel a spade? Too many to count.
It's enough to ruin my gay mood and drive me to smoking fags.
....but the world goes 'round
Updated On: 3/31/08 at 02:40 PM
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#8re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 2:41pmPapa, I hate when pundits are niggardly with their vocabulary. There are so damn few words everyone understands...
#9re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 3:30pm
I have to watch myself on "coon hunting." Like when I see someone with a wonky lazy eye, as in "She's got one eye lookin' at ya, the other one's coon huntin'" or "I haven't see you in a coon's age."
In college we also referred to non-speaking Shakespeare roles as "spear-chunker" parts...though it had and contines to have, nothing to do with race.
It may have been Jacoby that said that about "folks," now that i read that--I think she was on Bill Moyers Journal talking about that--so maybe Doris is off the hook.
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#10re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 3:35pmIt was a feeble attempt at humor- Lynne McTaggart was the author who accused Goodwin of plagiarizing her book on Jackie Kennedy.
#11re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 3:46pmDoris doesn't have to cheat off anyone's paper.
roquat
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/25/05
#12re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 7:22pmPersonally, I don't find "Look" strong enough for the usage you mention. I prefer, "Listen, buster"...
I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#13re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 3/31/08 at 7:36pm
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a hack and a plagiarist. Star Jones brought up the use of "folks" on The View years ago. I bet Goodwin just memorized what Star had to say and repeated it, claiming it as her own.
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
Updated On: 3/31/08 at 07:36 PM
roquat
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/25/05
#14re: pundits, stop saying 'look'
Posted: 4/1/08 at 2:36pm
Similar peeve--
People who sarcastically say, "Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel" after someone expresses a strong opinion. This means "don't you know enough to water down your words for mass public consumption?"
I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."
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