The bite comes, if any, in the proposition, or argument, that you cannot identify, explain, analogize, or compare the thing that is what it is with something else. Moore at least had an argument about goodness, although no one seems to be clear what exactly it was. Generally, though, everything is like something else in some respect, the real question is, is it an interesting or relevant one for our purposes?
If deployed at a verbal tic, as by my otherwise excellent broker, it's not even trivially true. I think he means by it, in characterization a possible purchase of a security, that he's told me either what he knows and why he thinks it is (or is not) a good idea, like the time I developed a passion for investing in Siberian fractal collateralized mink debentures leveraged against my holdings in Australasian kangaroo foot futures (ask Doug for an explanation, lety me assure you this was not the road to the wealth of Croesus or the dreams of Midas, and I was dissuaded) and while he can make third party research available to me in addition to whatever I noticed in the headlines of the FT, I think he means, that's all I can say, it's up to you to decide if it is a good idea, and (depending on the context), I wash my hands of your lunacy and let's list this as an unsolicited trade, or, it's a decent buy but not like getting in at McDonalds or Microsoft on the
ground floor.
--- On Fri, 4/18/08, shag <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> From: shag <shag at cleandraws.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] origins of a cliche
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Friday, April 18, 2008, 6:51 PM
> you know, one advantage of working for small companies,
> start ups and
> academia is the relative absence of bullshittery business
> cliches.
>
> I came home today, turned on NPR and had to listen to
> "it is what it is"
> wafting from the speakers. after listening to it far too
> often at work.
>
> who is the clown who started that expression because
> I'd like to blast my
> shagarella space gun into his red rubber nose.
>
> google did learn me that the expression was voted the most
> overused
> business cliche in 2004. why didn't it die 3 years ago
> then? why? why? why?
>
>
> that is all.
>
> :p
>
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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