It's not a phrase that I've ever gotten bent out of shape about. But for the last eight years or more, neither has it been one that I could use without self-consciousness. That would be because one of my dearest friends did get bent out of shape about it, considered it a lame offering when one could think of nothing more helpful to say. So, for eight years, I've used it sparingly and never without cringing and never in the presence of that friend.
Today, that friend said it to me . . . and it felt good. It didn't feel lame. It didn't feel empty. It felt, actually, like good advice. "I got over it," she said, of her previous objections. (There was more, actually, but that's the gist.)
So, in celebration, I thought a little post was appropriate. I'd intended it to be just the picture, and the phrase, hyperlinked to an obtuse definition of the phrase from somewhere on the web. No such creature (go look and let me know if you find what I couldn't). Not on Wikipedia, the OED, Dictionary.com, the Dictionary of Slang, etc. Nada.
Well, not nothing exactly. I found one page. A biblically-based defense of the phrase. I offer it here not to push religion on anyone. I prefer to take good advice wherever I can find it. So, the phrase for the day--this day at least--is simply,
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