WHO SAID WHAT
To whom, exactly, are people referring when they credit statements they are about to make to some vague “authority”.-”They say...?
At times, such usage seems to be outdoing the endemic ”y';know” or “See what I mean? questione we hear so often.
It seems to be an effort to lend authority to what they are about to say so you will not feel they are just concocting the idea at that moment out of whole cloth. Just what,.who or where this authority called :'They”:might happen to be is never revealed. That, I suppose, could be seen as adding a mystery to the message making it seem that one has searched all over the known world for the right words. The use of the expression tells the listener that the speaker is not quit sure of what is going to be said and wishes to under gird it with this,r sort of authority right at the start.
The concept is softened a bit when people quote entire groups of people.. They will start a sentence with: “The authorities all agree,”or ,perhaps “most Doctors think”. If the subject is political they will say :the “founding fathers believed”. This usage is met with in TV commercials at the turn of any dial: “Leading hospitals, doctors and nurses agree that our pill is not just better, but the very best any pill can ever be! They,.in turn, of course, are, quoting radio which voiced the idea a million or so times, having lifted it from print media which, itself, was quoting the old traveling medicine man as he urged people to accept blessings of his fine, natural elixir tom conquered whatever they thought plagued them at the time.
The entire home medical care system seems to have been founded on the “they say” principle.. “The old folks told us...” ”Your mother, great,- grand and great-greats and, so on back along the shady paths of history all said it.
It is also the very foundation of gossip, both the “over the back fence” variety and the segment of journalism which sells the same stuff so well these days. in print, on TV and on the Internet. It is becoming more and more difficult for us to tell legit copy from gossip, because the receiving end - readers and hearers – have become much more tolerant and seem to have reached a point where they accept good and un good; truth and falsehood, news and gossip, on equal terms. It is all set before them by TV's talking heads and every word is widely quoted and mis-quoted as “they say” material.
A.L.M. April 13 , 2004 [c451wds]-
