Doubling-Down on a Triple-Threat

I heard it again the other day. Just when you think you have broken free, that you won’t have to experience another mind-numbing dose of stupid, it happens. Yessir, some ball player who had just slapped a hit into the opponent’s outfield and swiftly made the single a double was announced by the homeboy announcers, “yep [your co-announcer’s name here], he doubled-down on that one.” Doubled-down, indeed. Now, I know I am nowhere inside a casino; not these days. But, I also know that there has to be one dude out there - his lights dimmed-to-flickering - who is likely to take his weapons into a casino and go bat-shit if he hears one more government-type, pundit, news or sports announcer, or his dumpy friend’s grandmother say that fucking phrase again.

So, as clichés go, ‘doubling-down’ started out as one that FS never believed would actually turn into the nauseating tic-tic it has become. And, of course, who else is there to blame for this, but his royal worthlessness, the S-I-C. Since his run for office and eventual – though highly suspicious - victory, this phrase has been heard more than any other hackneyed, nonsensical two, or three, word catch-phrase, intended to say in the span of a choked-out sentence what it might take longer to describe as, “he’s doing the same shit again.” Every pundit, from here to Cockfoster, London, has uttered it, and printed it. It’s spilled over to the sports world and looks like it is making a full ‘360’ as it meanders and circle-jerks its way back where it belonged – at a goddamned Blackjack Table.

Yet, this simple sounding go-to (oops) phrase is just one of many this society has in its employ and been amply sampling over the past several years for a variety of reasons. They are annoying, sometimes downright creepy, but one thing is for sure they are like fads, mostly idiotic and never gone soon enough. Probably, it is politics that has a stranglehold on the number of clichés that get born into the society’s lexicon at any given time. Thankfully, gamechanger is one you likely haven’t heard in use lately. That one, largely attributed to the shenanigans of ole-what’s-her-name from upcountry, there by the Yukon, when she almost single-handedly stepped on the metaphorical toe of the Republican Party, not to mention democracy before actually slipping on a banana peel – her and that freakish, sideshow family she is linked to. Uh-oh for me. Then, there is the ever-popular catchphrase you can use just about anywhere: ‘killing it.’ Hey, he’s killing it. Yeah, nice performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto the 2d. No, he’s really killing it. Agreed, it’s one of the finest interpretations since he outshined himself killing that Shostakovich thing. OK, so we didn’t notice that he actually killed that chameleon that was crawling up his pant leg. And, yeah, ‘thing’ as in ‘Shostakovich thing’ is another of those kind of, sort of, trite mal mots we are so sick of.

Hmmm. What else are we sick and tired of hearing just because we all decided these are cool words to say? Anything with ‘artisan’ in it; artisanal, artisan-made, artisan-like. Can you use it in a sentence? Yes, “That shit he just took was the work of a true artisan.” Nicely done. Because, let’s face it, we live in an era of acknowledging everything, everyone and every time anyone does anything. If someone does something well, they did it like a true artisan. They really brought it. Oh, there goes another one. I don’t know about you, but this is part of the problem with restricting use of language and putting the clamps on words that somehow have a natural beauty, and purpose. ‘Fuck’ for instance. There is no cliché there and there never will be, because it is what it is and you will never hear someone say, ‘Man, he really fucked that one,” without getting the true gist.

As a wise fellow blogger once queried, can’t we all just get along? Wrong quote, but it was akin to proposing an end to using these fucking, trite, catch-phrases to signify hipness. You are not in the ‘know.’ It’s more like you’re just part of the new normal. Get your game face on, and at the end of the day think out of the box and take this shit to a whole ‘nuther level. Oh, geez, you’re terrific. Let’s have a bromance.

Speaking truth to power.