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"It goes without saying."
Well, if it does, you wouldn't be saying it, would you? The phrase automatically cancels itself out. It manages to invalidate both itself and whatever else it gets attached to.
The only way to possibly use it is to say "It should go without saying..."
I read that in an otherwise very amusing book, over breakfast. Conversational use is one thing, but in my opinion, it's a particularly sloppy phrase in writing, because the author creates and controls the entire world, inside that text--writing, the author has every chance to actually design a scenario in which something can "go without saying", and conversely, in which anything can be said.
To say something and negate it in the same line, well, that author needs a better editor.
Well, if it does, you wouldn't be saying it, would you? The phrase automatically cancels itself out. It manages to invalidate both itself and whatever else it gets attached to.
The only way to possibly use it is to say "It should go without saying..."
I read that in an otherwise very amusing book, over breakfast. Conversational use is one thing, but in my opinion, it's a particularly sloppy phrase in writing, because the author creates and controls the entire world, inside that text--writing, the author has every chance to actually design a scenario in which something can "go without saying", and conversely, in which anything can be said.
To say something and negate it in the same line, well, that author needs a better editor.
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