11 Comments
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Daniel Nest's avatar

Reads the title of the post.

Thinks: "I'll make a funny comment a la 'No, HERE'S the thing' followed by a picture of The Thing."

Opens the post.

Sees the opening line and picture.

Thinks: "I was beaten by the best."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syd1Y4LffsQ

Andrew Smith's avatar

That voice is Jim Varney! He was fantastic. I grew up watching his commercials, at least around age 9-10, before his “Ernest Goes to Camp” and other Ernest movies came out:

https://youtu.be/mydaEvqqqD4

Andrew Sniderman 🕷️'s avatar

My 'tell' pre-AI was "at the end of the day"

Certain types of peoples loved that particular twist of vernacular and I loved them too.

Andrew Smith's avatar

I think I picked that one up from football commentators. They always made everything seem epic with language. Like, we just saw a lot of grown ups do violence on TV, some of them ending up in the hospital, many more with long term trauma; let’s talk about how there’s something way more important going on.

Andrew Sniderman 🕷️'s avatar

Yeah I can't watch that shit anymore. Whenever I watch a broadcast game the commercials also give me the ick

Andrew Smith's avatar

I don't know about you, but we don't ever watch commercials at home. Like, ever. Never ever.

Whenever I visit a friend or my mom and commercials come on, it's very jarring nowadays.

David Perlmutter's avatar

"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."

In Old Iceland, the national Parliament was called the "All-Thing" since it was meant to represent the interests of everybody on the island...

Andrew Smith's avatar

Absolutely - the further back you go, the more it’s exclusively used this way.

Rabbi Eli L. Garfinkel's avatar

In Russian, which I speak, an easy way to sound native is to preface what you say with дело в том, что…(dyeluh v’tom shtuh). It means, “The thing is…” Russians say this way more than we say our version.

Andrew Smith's avatar

I always appreciate these little differences in languages (besides the meanings of the words and syntax- though syntax begins to touch on this as well).

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May 25Edited
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Andrew Smith's avatar

Can you Thing what the smell is cooking?