Enough Already

This has nothing to do with racing, but it's been keeping me from sleeping at night.

Ridiculous Phrases That We Don't Ever Need to Hear Again

Seriously, people. Let's learn some new catchphrases and dump these which were worn out before their time.

You know
(Spoken by celebs in interviews) I once saw a snippet of an interview with a pop music star. His answer to a question about his music, in its entirety, was (approximately) "Well, you know, it's, like, you know, uh... you know, yeah." Well, now we know that you don't write your own lyrics. "You know" is code for "I have no idea how to articulate what I'm thinking." Not exactly what you expect from someone who gets paid millions of dollars to express himself.

At the end of the day
This strikes me as a grown-up version of "you know". It's the modern abbreviation of "when all is said and done." It sounded intelligent the first few times I heard it, probably because it seemed to have originated in Britain. Now NFL and NASCAR announcers are saying it. "You know, at the end of the day, you know..." At the end of the day, you go to bed. I guess I should be thankful the Americans didn't get there first with "You know, when the fat lady sings, you know..."

Black Friday
Help me understand the logic here. Black Monday refers to the 1987 stock market drop. Bad thing. Black Tuesday refers to the last day of the big one in 1929. Worse thing. Black Wendesday refers to the day the British Pound lost so much value due to currency speculation that the British government was forced to withdraw it from the European Exchange. Bad thing. Black Thursday started the 1929 market crash (followed by the original Black Monday and Black Tuesday). Big bad thing. So how did "Black" become applied to the (supposedly) biggest retail shopping day of the year? And by the way, it's NOT. It's overhyped nonsense, and now it has a poorly-chosen name. And if you're one of the 5am "doorbuster" crowd, then you need to go home and take a nap. Let's call it "Nap Friday" instead.

Put your "John Henry" by the X...
Has someone asked you to sign a document by asking you to "put your John Henry" on it? I hope you reached for a hammer. Because John Henry had a hammer. He was a steel-drivin' man. John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence with a famously large signature (the only signature on the document that can be read across the room). On the other hand, if someone does ask you for your John Hancock, feel free to sign the entire sheet like Johnny would have done.

There are plenty of good old cliches to choose from. Who decided that we needed new ones?