the japanese are such an interesting little people

in his treatise on bromides, burgess lists 47 trite remarks used by the narrow-minded. he says:

It is not merely because this remark is trite; it is because that, with the Bromide, the remark is inevitable. One expects it from him, and one is never disappointed. And, moreover, it is always offered by the Bromide as a fresh, new, apt and rather clever thing to say. He really believes, no doubt, that it is original—it is, at any rate, neat, as he indicates by his evident expectation of applause.

he calls these phrases bromidioms. perhaps the single shiniest bromidiom of our time is <ahem> “that’s what she said.” here are a few from burgess’ time. it’s a gas to see how little things have changed in the intervening one hundred years:

• “I don’t know much about Art, but I know what I like”
• “It isn’t money, it’s the PRINCIPLE of the thing I object to.”
• “Why aren’t there any good stories in the magazines, nowadays?”
• “The Japanese are such an interesting little people!”
• “The Salvation Army reaches a class of people that churches never do.”
• “It’s bad enough to see a man drunk—but, oh! a woman!”
• “It’s a mistake for a woman to marry a man younger than herself —women age so much faster than men. Think what she’ll be, when he’s fifty!”
• “It isn’t so much the heat, as the humidity.”
• “I’d rather have a good horse than all the automobiles made.”
• “I’d rather go to a dentist than have my photograph taken.”
• “You can live twenty years in New York and never know who is your next-door neighbor is.”