Is anyone else being driven crazy by “it is what it is” and “at the end of the day”? These nightmare propagating memes have taken over NPR and have even occasionally smacked me in the face live and in person. I try to interest people in this linguistic white noise that is the mid-brow equivalent of “like” and they often retort, “It is what it is”. At the end of the day I’m not sure anything can be done about it. I mean, in the final solution and at the bottom of the inning what is there but the certitude of circularity recurring with the same pugnacious tenacity of the redundant “reoccurring”. Ultimately, the bottom line is that both of these memes are a step up from um. I guess they are what they are and I need to get over it.