“To be honest” Why?

[Overtheatlantic]

I know it’s a very popular thing to write but think about it….why are you writing it? Because you’re not normally honest and therefore feel the need to announce when you’re finally being honest? It drives me nuts and I see it on MN all the time.

Ditto “I’m not going to lie”

As you state - people are generally not honest on their communications. Not at work, not with family or friends. Every communication, written or vocal is often to a greater or lessor degree revised and sanitised for its audience - to avoid hurt feelings, to make the commentator look good, all sorts of reasons. And sometimes people need it straight, hence the phrase.

It’s a statement of fact concerning that particular comment. Nothing else. The reader then knows it’s not a comment that’s tainted by external pressure.

I loathe 'to be fair'. Wasn't I being fair? I thought I was.

Its core usage is to indicate a mild breach of the standards of tact and courtesy that are implicit in the conversation. That's very easily stretched to its more general usage, which is to suggest to the listener that you are speaking with frankness, or even just that you are speaking quite emphatically.

So it seems generally quite meaningful to me.

Of course in some instances it is just filler, but we all use one or other phrase from the menu of filler terms

@MyThreeWordscompletely agree.

To be honest - this.

This is a helpful explanation. I still don’t like it but then I tend to not like filler phrases. As PP mentioned above “to be fair” is another one.

🤣 “Fair enough”

“I’m not gonna lie!”

No one asked you to!

Absolutely what @MyThreeWords says.

It’s tremendously useful on the Style and Beauty board - when I write ‘TBH’ I mean Look, I wouldn’t say this to your face if we met at a party …

I don’t interpret it that way though. I mean I get that there’s an apologetic tone to it in some cases but most of the time it just seems to be filler.

tbf it's often an amusing response and is usually abbreviated

Exactly this.
It alerts the listener to something they might not wish to hear.
A useful conversational gambit.

So irritating also when people post a thread as a question and then put ‘be honest!
Uttey ridiculous!

Uttey, @MelanzaneParmigiana ?

@Overtheatlantic , I don't like it either, but my pet hates are 'literally' (adds nothing), 'going against the grain' when used to mean 'going against the flow', and 'avoid like the plague'.

When someone responds with "to be fair" I've always taken it as looking at the issue from another viewpoint, and to enlarge the context. Eg:

"Colleague A was really moody and miserable this morning."

"Well to be fair, his brother died yesterday. "

"Oh. Fair enough then."