There are many expressions that people use, that when you pause to think about them, are completely meaningless.
A prime example is a six-word sentence that, if there was a competition to find the most pointless six-word sentence of all time, would win the top prize. Which of course would have to be something equally pointless.
I’m pretty sure you’ve heard your friends, colleagues and relatives use it occasionally and you may well be ‘guilty’ of it, too.
And it’s this . . .
“Can I ask you a question?”
Whenever anyone says that to me, I want to say (politely, naturally!), “You do realise that by pre-empting asking me a question by asking me if you can ask me a question, you’ve already asked me a question?”
By the time they’ve mulled over and absorbed the logic of the question I’ve asked them, they’ve usually forgotten the question they’d asked me if  they could ask me.
One of the most pointless sentences of modern times – and one I just can’t buy – has to be “Everything happens for a reason”.
Really?
People often use that expression to comfort themselves or the people around them when something bad occurs.
I understand that. But when you look around the world, at what’s happening in conflicts and natural disasters – how can anyone honestly believe they happen ‘for a reason’?
The line “Can I ask you a question?” turns up in films and TV dramas as often as “Try and get some rest!”
Whether it’s romantic dramas, thrillers, westerns, cop shows or soaps, the line invariably pops up somewhere.
I’m suddenly reminded of a story I read years ago about a group of successful Hollywood writers who decided, as an in-joke, to always put “Try and get some rest” in all their scripts.
Then they’d have an annual get together and toast the writer who’d managed to shoe-horn the line into the most unlikeliest scene.
Maybe something like…
“Great King of Thebes. I have just slain the three-headed Hydra . . . battled the Cyclops . . . and destroyed the Thracian army!”
“Well done, Hercules. Now try and get some rest!”