BACKGROUND

During the Holidays, I constantly found myself wondering if
I hated random strangers. After a few days, I realized it was because, when people
said “Happy Holidays”, I was replying “same to you” and, instinctively, my body thought
it was in a fight. Normally speaking,
I say “same to you” after a person wishes for me to choke to death or hopes
my brakes fail. Before Holiday shopping with my son, I had never used it sincerely
thus my brain was confused, like it had just seen a turtle fly.

CONCLUSION

Just as the brain ‘tricks’ the mind into seeing motions that
are not actually real in order to help it quickly process common events, I think it
also assigns irony to certain phrases –phrases that are rarely used sincerely– in order to
help the mind understand that it is actually being mocked or screamed at right now.

I’ve assembled a list of what I think are the three phrases that are most consistently
auto-labeled as insincere by your brain *:

• “same to you” (see above)
• “nice blinker” (I have only seen this stated non-ironically once: in 1996, when
  a friend saw a blinker on the side view mirror of a Mercedes for the first time).

• “I’ll leave you two love birds alone” (used as a lame exit after
  the only other two people in a room just fought; also the preferred phrase of movie villains, when
  they are saying goodbye to the hero, but leaving their head body guard behind to kill him).

* NOTE: this is a list of the three most consistently insincere phrases, not
the three most common insincere phrases. They are not the insincere
phrases that you are most likely to hear on a given day (that would probably be some thing
like “no shit” or a snarky “great fucking job, pal!”), but, instead, they are most likely to
be insincere when you do hear them. For example, you some times hear “no shit” genuinely (like
when you surprise a buddy with some fact), but you will NEVER hear some one genuinely
compliment your blinker.