Borrowed phrases

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My sense of humor is almost entirely borrowed from Conan O'Brien.


I also constantly practice phrases and script them in my head.

Yeah.

Most of my social words are taken from the original Star Wars trilogy (when I was young I'd sit down and watch them over and over again; my earliest remembered interest).

There are only so many words in the language, and there are only so many ways of combining them. Everything you say, somebody has likely said before.
I have a really good memory when it comes to quotes, so I always remember if I have heard that sentence somewhere before. Often though people aren't actually quoting. They are merely saying the same thing.

Remembering quotes as well as I do, I find that it is only natural to use these quotes when they fit into conversation. For instance Calvin (From the Calvin and Hobbs comic) once said that his inner clock was on Tokyo time (Because he was so tired in the morning and so awake at night) I thought this a cool way of saying that, so I use it whenever it fits.

I express myself through movie, television show, book lines, and song lyrics quite frequently; over the years I've developed a rather large database of these, and they just seem to pop out by themselves fairly often. If whoever I'm trying to communicate with does not have context for the reference, it most likely will be meaningless to them, but I find that I often cannot bring myself to elaborate for some reason; either you get me, or you don't deserve to get me; I'm probably broken like that.

I also am very quick to borrow terms and phrases from my friends and people around me if they strike a chord with me. This I will often do without really realizing it. All told, I am fascinated by language and language use, so I take special note of interesting language constructs and file them away for future reference.

I suspect it might be an autistic thing; often borrowed phrases (particularly from fiction) are my attempt to portray some particular emotional or dramatic sense that I do not know how to construct on my own; if, for example, a movie sets something up in a certain way that elicits a certain feeling from me, I will reference and reproduce that line or lines in an attempt to reproduce what I experienced in the context of the movie. Since most people don't memorize large sets of fictional phraseology in context, I suspect my attempts at communicating this way may in fact be feeble. But so be it.

"Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony." - Morpheus

Good fortune,

- Icarus is a wanton plagiarist...

It never occured to me that all people didn't do this. I speak mostly in borrowed phrases. I like a lot of futurama, with old country song lyrics, and a few I pick up from friends and coworkers. I just assumed that's how everyone talked though.

I do it sometimes, but with irony.. I notice the missus (NT) does it a lot...
crash go the chariots...

This is the first time I heard the word echolilia. I would always watch TV and read books and borrow phrases from them. I still do because I can't think of anything to say that fits into the peer form of talking. By the way you're son sounds cute. I have a little nephew that comes up with funny lines he's heard somewhere.

Not phased by worn-out phrases topic

And I thought I was the only one...now I rest easy!

Make my day? Deny them that? Hasta la Vista! The three-word or hree syllable phrases are the best phrases. Here's Johneeeee! Mange le merde (Eat Sh**) [Pierre Elliot Trudeau] Easier to remember.