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A new study has concluded that people who use the phrase ‘it’s as simple as that’ are, in terms of IQ and critical thinking skills, as simple as that themselves.
“The phrase is an anomaly,” said Simon Williams, Professor of redundant and irritating phrases at Oxford University.
“There is nothing that is ‘as simple as that,’ everything has nuance and complication. Even saying something like ‘a chair is for sitting on, it’s as simple as that,’ is problematic; the chair may be ornamental, it may be a model chair.
“But where we see the phrase used most is to reduce complex political problems and concepts down to a meaningless single idea – ‘We need to leave the EU, it’s as simple as that,’ ‘there is too much immigration, it’s as simple as that’.”
Previously it was thought that the phrase ‘it’s as simple as that’ was used to manipulate the listener into feeling inferior for not grasping a concept the speaker was explaining.
“This is what was so fascinating about the study. It showed no manipulation on the part of people who said ‘it’s as simple as that’, it just showed that they were very, very stupid and were genuinely incapable of understanding nuanced concepts and arguments.
“Ironically, mentally speaking, they were as simple as the very phrase they would use.”
The Professor’s next study will be into the use the phrase ‘It’s just common sense,’ and already he has an idea of the sort of people who will feature.
“Shitheads, mainly.”
