Dictionary of Deplorable Idioms

Play the Devil’s Advocate

A figure of speech which means to play the role of the opposing, usually less popular side of an argument. Has little or nothing to do with the actual devil, unless of course one is literally defending Lucifer in a court of law or at least championing some of Satan’s seditious philosophies. One might properly call himself the devil’s advocate if, for example, he publishes a treatise on the merits of eating, drinking, and being merry—on the rhetorical basis that since we will die on the morrow, no degree of salvific action is worth exerting. (I once had a colleague at Oxford who attempted this very feat—and with remarkable success.)

In almost all other cases, however, the phrase is a blatant misnomer, for the devil has far more to gain from one-sided, close-minded points of view than his divine prosecutor. Why anyone might want to defend such a sulfurous serpent in the first place is another matter altogether.

Ice-Cold Water

Perhaps one of the most puzzling noun phrases ever to grace the English language, for it is either imbecilically paradoxical or insufferably redundant.

On one hand, ice-cold water could be dihydrogen monoxide that is actually as cold as ice—in which case it would be ice, for one of the few agreed-upon facts of the universe is that H₂0, cooled below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, assumes its solid state, a.k.a. ice. (This grants, of course, that the water under question is free of impurities which would hinder the freezing process, as I have had to explain to my students on many exasperating occasions.) Thus, all frozen water could technically be dubbed ice-cold water, but it would be nonsensical to do so considering ice already is, by definition, frozen water.

On the other hand, the phrase seems to apply to a beverage whose frigidity reasonably approaches that of ice, though obviously without actually dropping below freezing point, else it would no longer be a beverage at all, but a flavorless slushy or popsicle.

Just Asking

When one claims to be just asking, this is really a mere justification for positing a question that might otherwise be found socially unacceptable. Unlike the preestablished allowances of “Truth or Dare” or a tactful prologue such as “May I ask you a serious question?”, however, just asking takes the arrogant stance that the speaker is making the inquiry without any sort of motive whatsoever. Such an idea might seem ludicrous, but in the heat of the moment, just asking can instantly parry any guilt away from the inquirer regardless of how benign or malignant their intentions might be. It carries power comparable to the insult-softening bless their heart, or even its close cousin just saying.

For that matter, the word just in and of itself bears deceptively potent weight. When two individuals are arguing about the easiest way to accomplish a task, for example, and one suggests what is clearly the simplest solution, all the other person need do is embed the word just before their suggestion, thus rendering their proposal more pleasing and desirable to the mind irrespective of how outrageously difficult that solution is in reality. To climb a mountain, for instance, one person suggests taking the well-established trail that leads directly to the summit, while the other trumps this option by saying, “Nah, let’s just scramble through the underbrush of the 45-degree slopes leading in a very roundabout and much slower and more dangerous way to the same place.” (It was an experience I would rather not wish to repeat for reasons both physical and rhetorical.)

I See What You’re Saying

No you don’t.

Great Minds Think Alike

This aphorism sounds good at first—until you consider a few vital truths. Firstly, if we are to take “great minds” in this instance to significate most intelligent or of keenest faculties, the briefest look at history will immediately reveal that the greatest minds of our age and every other have rarely ever been on the same page. Plato and Aristotle and Socrates and Shakespeare and da Vinci and Goethe and Confucius and Hume and Rousseau and Burke and Kant and Descartes and Voltaire and Nietzsche and Freud and Einstein and Hawking can hardly be said to have been in complete agreement on all philosophical, philological, psychological, pyrotechnical, political, economical, and social issues.

Now, if a caveat were made that “minds of exactly the same measurable greatness think alike,” we might be able to rule out many of these contradictions; but by leaving it simply as great minds think alike, it is to be presumed that any mind that is of any caliber of greatness thinks like any other mind of higher or lower greatness. (As one among the upper echelons of intellectual genius, I can unequivocally confirm that this is absolutely false.)

Additionally, the idiom ignores the significant fact that lesser minds often think more alike than great ones do. When one is raised as a subsistence-level hunter-gatherer with no opportunity for intellectual stimulation, only with a hive-mind instinct to survive, it can indeed be said that many of these minds think alike. Even with the lesser-known stipulation that follows, “though fools seldom differ,” this is still inadequate to compensate for the vast spectrum of intelligence ranging from absolute idiocy to near-but-not-quite-foolishness. The entire premise of this figure of speech, then, is unsubstantiated inside and out.

Donating Plasma

According to the esteemed Webster’s dictionary, to donate is “to make a gift, grant, or contribution of something.” Unlike the verb to serve, which can in fact be employed in either a paid or nonpaid scenario, donate in no way leaves this flexibility of intent. It should come as no great surprise, then, that donating plasma as an act of selling one’s body fluids for monetary compensation makes about as much sense as serving fruit punch in a spaghetti strainer. (You would be surprised what I have seen at university luncheons.)

This is not to say that donating plasma is in itself an ignoble act; it is merely worth noting that euphemistic figures of speech can swiftly lead a person down the slippery slope of good intentions to the damnable defense attorneyship of Screwtape himself.

For the Sake of Argument

Comparable to play the devil’s advocate and just asking, for the sake of argument is a lamentably thin concealment for falsifying data to further a debated point. Let us suppose, for example, that for the sake of argument, we accept for the sake of argument as a feasible idiomatic expression. In this case, we are then allowed to layer any thick, buttery frosting of sweet fictions that would serve to support our aim. We could contest that ice-cold water is not necessarily frozen, or that dolphins can walk, or that getting paid to make a donation is anything but a steaming heap of pungent rhinoceros excrement (particularly on the singular occasion that one of my rather less popular colleagues received such payment in an unthinkably literal sense).

In short, for the sake of argument not only demands that outlandish claims be accepted as fact, but the phrase in itself makes the claim that arguments are a sake worth fighting for independent of any meaningful progress or results. But then again, throughout this entire ordeal, we might have just been playing the devil’s advocate.