Here's the Thing

Just in case this literal meaning was on your mind, I don’t want to disappoint you. Ladies and gentlemen, behold Marvel’s The Thing:

Here’s the thing, though: I want to talk about this phrase, here’s the thing.

Whenever you’re reading something written by AI, there are a few clues that might tip you off. One is the em-dash—which I love, but which has nevertheless become vastly more ubiquitous now than it was just a few years ago.

Another telltale sign is repeated use of certain key phrases. One of these phrases—here’s the thing—has become an almost-instant trigger for eye-rolls. If you converse with AI, there’s a very good chance you hear this phrase a ton nowadays. Even if you don’t, AI writing makes its way around. It influences non-AI writing.

The thing is, I’ve been using this phrase my whole life, and I’ve found it useful to orient a conversation around that obvious inflection point. It gets people to understand that what you’re saying right now is of particular importance.

Uhhh…. what’s a thing? What’s the etymology?

The word “thing” comes from Old English, pronounced very similarly, but with a letter at the start of the word that represents that “th” sound: þing. This wasn’t quite the same word as today—it mainly meant an assembly, council, or meeting where decisions were made and matters discussed.

Thanks, Past Andrew!

Over time, thing came to be much more general. When you hear it in this phrase, it means that the central argument is about to appear. The thing has come to represent any idea, not just some literal collection of people.

As for the phrase, here’s the thing: all the other stuff you say before it might as well go yadda yadda yadda.