same difference

[fflo]

[Poll #501194]

Comments

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I think you can go back in polls and answer the questions you skipped... do I remember that right?

I don't see how it makes sense. What difference is the same? "No difference" I could see. The expression (in my experience) is used to say there's no difference, but "same difference"--- hunh???

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I agree that "same difference" only makes logical sense as a reply to a more complicated expression comparing two differences: Why is it irritating when people say "irregardless," which is constructed to be the opposite of "regardless," which is what they realy mean, while it is not irritating when people say "flamable," which is constructed to be the opposite of "inflamable," which is what they really mean. It's the same difference!

But nobody uses "Same Difference" in that context. I think "same difference" it as a con-something-eration of "Same thing" and "No difference" which is what the expression means to me.

Frankly, "just in case" baffles me,too. Yes, of course I know what it means, but I cannot parse the words in any comprehensible way. You have to add words to make it comprehensible at all--"just in the case that"--and that's still all weird and awkward.

That darned language.

[paperkingdoms]

I said I don't use it... but it's entirely possible that I do. I know it doesn't make much sense. But it was extremely common at home [enough so that it was often "same diff" among grumpy teenagers]. And I haven't noticed either way here.

Six of one!

[lovelikeyeast.livejournal.com]

As a "same difference" sayer for as far back as I can remember, here are my theories:

--I always thought it grew out of yiddish-American, as it is a natural part of the NewYorkese my famly speaks. Eh, same difference, nu? What is it your business?

--But now, having grown more into a "six of one" sayer (short for "six of one, half-dozen of another), I believe that it actually does refer to comparing differences. Or comparing sums, anyway. So close!

Re: Six of one!

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I'm as likely to say "Half of one, six dozen of the other."

[andystardust.livejournal.com]

I'm no linguist, and I agree with peteralway down below that it's actually a combination of "same thing" and "no difference." But "same difference" DOES, I think, have a kind of logic. If I compare one thing to another thing and say "same difference," maybe I mean that the things which differentiate thing number 1 from the rest of the universe are the SAME DIFFERENT things which differientiate thing number 2 from the rest of the universe. So, you see why I'm not a linguist?

Re: Six of one!

[fflo.livejournal.com]

The idea that it comes to us through a language blend seems to make sense---and if it comes through Yiddish, even better. Hey, wait---you didn't capitalize "yiddish"---don't we capitalize that? I love the syntactic variation of "What is it your business?" and the ilk.

Suppose Rita Mae has anything to do with your six-of-one-ing? That's another expression I was late to. Maybe my family of origin just never USED expressions for "whatever" and "let it go"! You'd think I'da heard 'em in the schoolyard, or on "the streets"---you know, while I was picking up sex education there and all.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I dunno---looks like some fairly sophisticated reasoning to me! And I think I follow. The collusion theory of Pete's probably has better odds, but yours has a big picture appeal, fer sure.

Re: Six of one!

[fflo.livejournal.com]

okay, THAT's good! May I use it without attribution? (With attribution would be a touch clunky...)

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I like to use "irregardless" intentionally, just to be funny (in some bizarro-world way it strikes me that way) (overkill, I think, plus the sounds themselves). The flammable/inflammable one has been a curiosity to me for some time, but I never thought about "just in case."

Boy, Math Reviews'd drive you crazy with the mathematicians' use of "in case." "In case x = 2, y = 47," say, only with mathier number stuff. They mean "in THE case IN WHICH," which seems to these ears especially bad to truncate. I keep expecting to read on to something like "In case x = 2, pull alarm and proceed single-file to the nearest exit. Walk; don't run."

[fflo.livejournal.com]

wait, i think i mean 'collision' --- do I? i wanted to say 'conflagration' at one point. not gonna use the dictionary on my day off, though!

Re: Six of one!

[lovelikeyeast.livejournal.com]

Hey, man. I capitalize completely randomly when it comes to e-mail and lj posts. If I throw any caps in for words other than "I," or the beginnings of sentences, I feel less lazy. Really.

I am completely unfamiliar w/the rita mae-isms. I wasn't a fan of rubyfruit jungle and seem to have completely forgotten it entirely.

Essentially, from this response, I apparently have dementia.

Are you sure it wasn't from the "school of hard knocks" and not "the streets"?

Re: Six of one!

[lovelikeyeast.livejournal.com]

Thank god. I thought I was the only one!

Re: Six of one!

[fflo.livejournal.com]

i think it was actually the "school of repeated moderate knocks and knocks that pretended not to be knocks," followed by the "graduate school of trying to figure out what was a knock and what wasn't," with post-grad work in the general area of "knocks? oh, yeah; knocks. i remember knocks. hey, there's something uncool about all these knocks".

[paperkingdoms]

Yay! A mathism I haven't picked up. :^) That's just lazy.

Re: Six of one!

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Well, if you use it in Math Refuse, I would expect it to be fully footnoted. But not in any other circumstance.

Hello!

[schizokitty.livejournal.com]

Hi there! I was just looking at my info page and found I had a new "friend." I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, though -- however did you light upon my LJ? We don't have any mutual friends, and not that many mutual interests (etymology, though! Rock on!), so I'm stumped. How'd you get here?

Not that I'm distressed; I'm just curious. Please, introduce yourself! =^_^=

Re: Hello!

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Hi! I hate to say it, but I'm not sure how I found you. Perhaps I saw a comment you'd made someplace or something? It wasn't etymology, and it couldn't be friends-of-friends, I don't think. Sorry! I just came across you somehow & happened to click & see that you might be interesting to read. Just trying to freshen my friends' page a little, as I do from time to time.

Okay with you?

I'm Lisa, btw. I live in Michigan these days.

Re: Hello!

[schizokitty.livejournal.com]

Hee. Well, that's cool. No prob. I don't tend to friend back automatically (information overload, y'know), but I have no problem being on other people's flists. And I'll probably drop by from time to time. =^_^=

I, as you know, amd Kat. I am a NW girl. ^____^

Re: Hello!

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I, too, friend & unfriend in order to manage my reading---glad to hear you don't take that stuff personally.

Nice t'meetcha!