Thursday, July 28, 2011

Bless His Heart...

Do you know something that I've noticed that has really been getting on my nerves lately?

It's people using the phrase above; "bless his heart?"

I've been talking to chaps lately and they've chucked the BHH thing into the conversation. At first thought it's as innocuous as one can imagine, a little inoffensive, probably even nice and complimentary, three words.

But something about the use of it, on all these recent occasions, nagged deeply inside me. So much so that I devoted some thinking time to it to try to figure out why.

I realised why this has come about. This little trio of words is a farce, a trojan horse of a phrase, a cunning way of disguising an insult as a compliment.

Why am I saying all of this?

Well it's used when people want to assert their superiority and patronise someone else. They use it as if they're talking about a dog or a small child, wrapped in a bundle of smelling like a compliment.

One person was telling me about a driver recently, of how helpful he had been and how good he was. All very nice I hear you think. But then the person came to narrate details of a specific incident and said:

"And L, bless his heart, was very protective"

The implication, in a very indirect way, was that L knew no better, that he was like a faithful dog following his master off the edge of a cliff.

Another friend was talking about his child and used BHH in that context. And that's when people use it; when they want to portray the person as childish or pet like.

That's why it's my current bone of contention.

Just saying like.

Bless my heart.

4 comments:

GG said...

I've heard that one a few times. Don't like it!!!

To my mind it brings up a picture of a blood soaked heart (a real biological one) with something like a halo on top of it. Not very nice.

Angel said...

I keep saying "bless his/her cotton socks"... force of habit I think :S

Anonymous said...

I like the word bless. But I have to admit I do use it to imply cuteness, which I know you boys loathe.

Scrumps said...

I say it a lot. And it's with no intention of being patronising. There are so many bad things and people in the world that when someone does something nice, it's a fair way of acknowledging it. But each to their own.