What is a quote you see everywhere that you absolutely hate?

It depends, at their worst are they abusive to their friends, family etc for no good reason? If so, then I'd agree it is nonsense used by abusers. If it's said by someone who gets treated awfully for having a rough day, week etc and gets treated badly, well then this quote is true.

I feel like I've never seen or heard of anyone good using that quote. I'm sure it makes some sense if used in genuine good faith. The quote would make sense applied to someone with a disability, for example, by interpreting it more along the lines of having to deal with the person not always being outgoing and maybe even sometimes needing extra help.

But no, I've only ever seen shitty (or at least allegedly shitty) people use that quote, to justify their shittiness. The "worst" they refer to is usually bouts of anger or abuse.

What people really mean when they say this is

> it’s in the last place you think to look

This again is a misnomer because, not just because you stop looking… but because people find it hard to admit things are lost. All part of the half serious, half ridiculous psuedo science of Findology (disclaimer: my own blog)

Embarrassingly it took me years to realize what that quote meant. I had always interpreted it to mean that the item is found in an unexpected place. But of course what it really means is that you stop looking once the item is found, therefore that's the last place you looked 🤦

And it is a false statement:

sometimes you stop looking without finding anything so in those cases it isn't in the last place you look

so the clam "It's always in the last place you look" is obviously false.

otherwise you could say up front "I'm only gonna look in one place!" and then you would HAVE to find it in this last place you look!

One time I kept looking just to prove that statement wrong. I think I was 4yo.

As a nonnative speaker, the first time I heard the expression was on Bojack Horseman and it confused the hell out of me.

Religious bs

I agree most of the time, but when I have to sign a sympathy card at work for someone i barely know, what the hell am i supposed to say?

I can't change the work culture so i just say something generic like that most of the time lol

Btw I'm not even religious

Man creates dinosaurs

Dinosaurs eat man

Woman inherits the earth

Which is ironically said the most by soft men who grew up in easy times.

One thing I never understood about that nonsense quote is why it would be a bad thing even if it were true. Like, who the heck wants people to be "hard" or have hard times? What's so awful about people having easy times and getting to relax and enjoy life?

It's also usually used by "back in my day" bigots who are usually using it to complain about people they don't like and quite frequently LGBT people, because they think that their generation pushing people into the closet was somehow a good thing (or that it meant LGBT people didn't exist).

This is true. My mum used it a bit.

Super closely related is the "god works in mysterious ways" apology often used as the response if you ask what that reason was. It's bizarre that the people saying that quote are so insistent that everything happens for a reason even though they cannot answer what that reason might be (and usually get really uncomfortable if you press for an answer).

Capitalists in a nutshell

Usually as a way of being racist, too.

This is a me problem, but it makes me cringe when someone has to explicitly write out who they are onto a sign.

I feel like that should be shown and not said. To me, it feel ingenuous when it's written onto a sign

Anybody on the autism spectrum just laughs sadly, shakes head quietly, when told 'just be your self'

Agreed. This sounds good but immediately falls apart at the first scrutiny. It's the same with "Don't be a dick." Everyone nods their heads and thinks, "Oh, that's so obvious!" Of course, everyone agrees because they're imagining what they believe is 'evil' or 'being a dick' and just assume everyone else agrees. Imagine their surprised-Pikachu face when they learn that other humans use different criteria.

But, if you think you can sum up thousands of years of ethics and legal theories with one pithy sentence, then go for it.

It's weird that it's still used unironically today (and in fact feels like it's made a relatively recent revival). Like, you'd think they'd at least switch to a phrase that makes sense.

Let me interject for a moment!

What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux. Thank you for taking your time to cooperate with with me, your friendly GNU+Linux neighbor, Richard Stallman.

I don't think that's the original quote, but rather came later to try and improve the clearly flawed quote. Searching, I found https://grammarist.com/phrase/the-customer-is-always-right/, which says the original quote is the rather uninspiring "Rule number one: the customer is always right. Rule number two: If the customer is wrong, please refer to rule number one".

That said, I do agree with you completely. I think the quote is just so obviously flawed, as customers abuse the heck out of it. Treating it as applying to aggregates makes way more sense. e.g., if customers want a pink doodad and you only sell doodads in black... well, then you're wrong and should start selling them in pink.

As a corollary, I also like the quote that has been often attributed to Ford (but checking, it seems unproven if he actually said it), "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." I like that quote because customers often frankly don't actually know what they want. I've had countless times myself where I didn't know I wanted a product until after I learned about it. And myself, I'm a software dev. This quote constantly applies to my field. The idea of users not knowing what they want is an extremely popular meme in the field (example). Users often need expert guidance to identify what they actually want and what a practical solution might look like.

I use that sometimes on my kids. But I've never seen GoT. That phrase WAY predates that show.

Huh? That phrase is older than most countries. Why in the world would you think game of thrones created it? https://thequestingfeast.com/the-origin-of-sweet-summer-child/

"...genitals"?

...hair? Please tell me that the whole slogan is "For Men's and Women's Hair"...