[Ads-l] RES: "I'm/we're not going to lie"

[David Daniel]

Yes! I have noticed increasing use, and it is indeed annoying. And it's
often, or even usually, something that one would not need to lie about.
"[I'm not] / [I ain't] gonna lie: I like chocolate." "Well, I'm glad you
found the courage to out yourself" - sort of thing. 
DAD


Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      "I'm/we're not going to lie"
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Has anyone else noticed an increasing use of the above phrase in both white
speech and writing, as in:

"We're not going to lie. The outcome of yesterday's election was an
unexpectedly-pleasant surprise."

I regard this as a somehow-annoying - I ain' gon' lie - standard calque on
the empty, for all practical purposes, BE catch-phrase,

_I ain' gon' lie_

roughly equivalent to - I ain' gon' lie - "no kidding," to the extent that
it's any more than a verbal tic like "Gnome sane?"

I ain' gon' lie. Gnome sane?



--
-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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