10 April 2005

Me? Serious?

So I've been pondering recently about the seemingly ubiquitious conversational use of the phrase, "Are you serious?" Other variants include, "Seriously?" "No way!" or giving credence to a comment by adding the word "seriously" ("The new Fiona Apple album is seriously great"). I don't know about you, but I say these things a lot. Once I became self-aware, I noticed that lots of people around me do too!

Is this phrase of skepticism a byproduct of the rampant dishonesty and lack of integrity in our society? It seems that we do live in an age where you really can't believe everything you read/hear/see (ESPECIALLY on the internet). We're fed spin, half-truths, and all out lies everywhere we turn (ahem, leaders of our nation).

Perhaps my aforementioned socio-linguistic observation tells of our society's loss of faith in the fellow human's word. Hmm...

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