"There's an old saying..."

[Wilson Gray]

On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 10:08 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> people seem to say "There's an old saying...." when what
> they mean is something like, "I heard somebody say this, or something very
> much like it, on one occasion, and it stuck in my mind because it's so
> clever or succinct."

It could even be just a mindfart. I was once in the habit of
introducing a wholly-new subject into a conversation with the words,
"As I've said…" I got away with this for a long time, it being
difficult, in a general conversation, to know whether anyone has
broached any particular subject before and nobody cares, anyroad. But
it got to be too much for my then-girlfriend, since she knew that I
hadn't said any such thing to her at any earlier point in the
relationship: "Why do you keep saying 'As I've said,' when you've
*never* said *anything* like that to me before?!!!"

Youneverknow.
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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