I’m a naturally gullible person, a quality my grandma exploited to the height of her satisfaction and amusement. Amazingly, although I don’t take teasing well, her exploitation never made me feel bad. Maybe it was because her attitude was never, “You are so STUPID,” it was always, “Not everybody who takes advantage of your gullibility loves you like I do, Squirt.”
I mean, believing something with insufficient proof was kind of A Bad Thing for Othello, right?, not to mention DESDEMONA.
ANYWAY, between Grandma and a couple of sayings that were common in my family, I have a somewhat jaundiced view of anybody who says, “Never mind proof; trust me.”
Even “proof” is suspect, depending on what it is and what backs up the “proof.” I mean, I seldom get political on this blog, but am I the only one who saw Colin Powell testify that we had proof of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction because some guy we were paying drew a cartoon of a truck he saw and went: Seriously?
Holy gosh, I’m getting all Dan Antion with the length of this one-liner post. 😀
Guess I’d better get to it and post a one-line. I have two today.
The first is for when people want to “prove” something by repeating what they heard other people report. When one of us would try to “prove” something by saying, “They say….”, my family would reply,
They-sayers are liars.
The other one is from my accountant mother.
Figures can’t lie, but liars can figure.
Liars figuring is what she called “creative accounting,” and she was agin it.
This post is part of Linda G. Hills weekly blog hop, One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner or just like them, follow the link.
A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: Someone believes something with insufficient proof.
MA
Dan antion
February 6, 2019 at 8:13amI like them both. I never heard the first one, but I like it a lot.
Marian Allen
February 6, 2019 at 8:46amIt makes you stop and think, when you’re basing your reasoning on reports of reports.
Ally Bean
February 6, 2019 at 10:51amI love both of your one-liners. So true, and I don’t even need any proof to know that. ?
Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt
February 6, 2019 at 12:09pmGood ones. And good-natured teasing – as long as it is occasional – is one of the joys of life. Taken to excess (usually by people who are insecure) drives me nuts. We have some of those in the family, and I avoid them!
Figures don’t lie – but getting accurate ones is work, and interpretation often wrong. I’m suspicious of other people’s ‘statistics.’
And didn’t believe the WMD way back then, either.
Marian Allen
February 6, 2019 at 5:04pmA little teasing goes a long way with me. I think I’m on the spectrum,and I don’t always take it well–and I don’t always do it correctly. Teasing can mask aggression, and it doesn’t always mask it very well. But, you’re right, that good-natured teasing is a joy. 🙂
joey
February 6, 2019 at 7:29pmI live in a very proof-oriented world. At work, it’s all about evidence. At home, I’m like, “Send me proof of life” and also a bit Nancy Drew “You’re the only one who wears hot pink lipstick.” But really, I’m a feeling person. I just look for the proof of what the feelings tell me.
Marian Allen
February 7, 2019 at 1:34pmI like that attitude: “I just look for the proof of what the feelings tell me.” You’d make a great TV detective!