Some Colloquial Phrases that are Now Officially "Broken"

First there’s “broken” as in Mitt Romney’s “Washington is broken”. It’s moronic tough-manager speak, the kind of mangaer speak that allows a person who runs, say a predatory buy out operation like Bain, to buy and break up companies and fire workers because the institution is “broken”, forgetting how many people with jobs then become “broke”.

Then there’s the phrase, which has taken root in the blogoshere, if it didn’t originate there: “Not so much.” I used to like it. I don’t think I’ve used it but I can’t be sure, but in any case its sell-by date is gone. (By the way there’s a third phrase that ought to be eliminated: “sell-by date”, with its faint aura of pretentious anglophilia has had it’s sell-by date, I’m declaring , right now).

Stilll I’d love to know who first came up with “not so much”. I’ll even enable Comments–I must admit I just got SO tired of the same old repetitive political rants, so don’t think you’re going to sneak any off-topic stuff on this post. I’ve tolerated it before but now, not so much.

Not so much: It was good, kind of funny the first two hundred times you heard or read it. Not so much now. Please, it’s jumped the shark (which phrase itself has LONG ago jumped the shark).

Not so much, “not so much”, anymore,people. It no longer has street cred (another phrase that has lost its street cred–I feel like I’m in a maze of phrases that are all, in one way or another, broken).

Anyway I think it would be interesting if commenters suggested other phrases that are “broken” and if anyone has a theory of who first said “Not so much”.