The phrase is a verbal shrug of the shoulders. It disavows agency. It suggests the speaker is powerless and has no responsibility for his actions, writes Joe Bennett. Photo / Getty Images
The phrase is a verbal shrug of the shoulders. It disavows agency. It suggests the speaker is powerless and has no responsibility for his actions, writes Joe Bennett. Photo / Getty Images
A DOG'S LIFE
OPINION:
The question is simple: what is it?
And the answer is equally simple: all together now, on the count of three, loud and strong so everyone can hear us, "It is what it is."
There are fads in language. A phrase arises. It seems fresh and clever. We allwant to seem fresh and clever, so the phrase gains currency. And a cliché is born.
Twenty years ago I wrote about a cliché then in vogue. The phrase was 'it's all about…' Rugby coaches were especially fond of it. "It's all about the passion", they would say. But it was never all about the passion. It may have been partially about the passion but it was also - and rather more - about passing and tackling and catching the bloody ball.
"It's all about" sounded analytically decisive, piercing to the heart of a matter, which is why it caught on. But it was used to mean only "here's a factor I've just thought of that matters to a greater or lesser degree". And because it didn't say that, because it was dishonest, its use has withered. Today you rarely hear it. It has fallen among the leaf litter of language where, like countless other fashionable phrases, it is rotting back to its component parts.
All of which illustrates that the purpose of language is to communicate and what doesn't communicate well dies. In other words the language polices itself. There is never any need to worry about it.
We do worry about it, of course. We old people are forever declaring that the language is in decline. But all we mean is that it's changing. And what it's changing from is the language that was in vogue when we grew up. In other words, the language is like the weather: it was better when we were young.
There is no need for me to mock, "It is what it is". If the phrase serves no purpose, if its words are empty, it will soon wither. Nevertheless it is intriguing to see how it is used.
Miami Beach, Florida is currently flooded with people enjoying what Americans call spring break. Traditionally this consists of university students heading south to drink too much, but this year it has expanded into a premature celebration of the end of a pandemic.
Florida's stupid governor - inevitably a Trump enthusiast - has relaxed all Covid restrictions in defiance of scientific advice. The young and the thoughtless have flocked. In doing so they look likely to be giving the virus one last big push. When they return to their home states they'll start a third wave of the disease.
Panicking, the authorities in Miami Beach re-imposed a curfew. The revellers resisted. They were there for a good time. One of them was interviewed on television, standing maskless in the street, drunk and happy. The reporter asked him whether he thought he and his fellow revellers were behaving in a reckless and stupid manner. To which he replied, as you have already guessed, "It is what it is".
The phrase is a verbal shrug of the shoulders. It disavows agency. It suggests that the speaker is powerless and has no responsibility for his actions. Ah well, it couldn't be helped. But of course it could have been helped. It could very easily have been helped by thinking first and then acting on that thought.
American actor Doris Day in the late 1950s. Photo / Getty Images
"It is what it is" is a present tense version of the philosophy propounded by that eminent thinker Doris Day. Que sera sera, sang dear old Doris, whatever will be, will be. It's a beguiling motto. Sit back, relax, and above all don't worry about what's ahead. You can do nothing to alter it.
And there's some macro truth in Que sera sera. We are all the prisoners of our own nature and there is no point fretting about it. Character, by and large, is destiny. But on a micro level it is nonsense. As Bernard Levin observed, he'd never met the fatalist who didn't look twice before crossing the road.
But Que sera sera is a philosophical profundity in comparison with "It is what it is". "It is what it is" is a verbal cop-out, a Clayton's statement, the thought you express when you haven't a thought to express. It makes stating the obvious look clever. And for this reason it will fade, its popularity will wither and within a year or two it will drop from the language leaving no sign that it was ever there.
