It Is What It Is, Unless It Isn't, In Which Case It Is Not What It Is

bkmarcus is in language curmudgeon mode: http://www.bkmarcus.com/blog/2006/12/and-another-thing.html

I will follow suit and rant a little about the expression “It is what it is”. I have been hearing this all over the place in such manifold contexts that I am no longer sure of what it means. For years, I have heard “it is what it is” in the limited context of disputes over the interpretation of evidence. The discussants recognize that it (the evidence) is what it is and that their disagreement goes to what it signifies. This makes sense to me, whereas the practice of throwing “it is what it is” willy-nilly into conversation does not. It annoys. Mrs Vache Folle has adopted “it is what it is” as her catch phrase of late.

Sometimes, it seems that IIWIS is used as a substitute for “whaddya gonna do”, and I can live with that extension of meaning and usage to encompass a fatalistic acceptance of that which cannot be changed. It’s the throwaway deployment of IIWIS that bugs me. My boss’ assistant just used it in the context of the etiquette of business dinners as if to say that business dinners are an immutable physical law rather than a problematic social construction about which one may disagree. (I think it is rude when I travel to expect the folks I am visiting to entertain me after work hours when they could be with their families.)

I have lived in New York now for nine years, and I still don’t know how to use “fuhgeddabouddit” and “not for nothing”. They seem to me to be throwaways, but I suspect that they mean something. Perhaps, IIWIS is over my head just as those expressions are.