What's A Load Of Nonsense? | QI 

"No legs too short to reach the ground"? I have to disagree. Look at ballet dancers, they need to stand on tip toes to reach the ground.

Loved Alan's reversible nonsense!

I hate to admit it, but as a web developer, previously for a new age website (streaming service), I used said generator instead of lorem ipsum for all my test pages. Which of course meant some people when reviewing the site started thinking the content was real.

I awoke one morning years ago to find that I had written myself a note in my sleep. It read 'Even Spring must one day give way to linear algebra.' 40 years later and I still haven't puzzled out the meaning.

Even if it loses all its engines, a plane will always reach the crash site.

For those wondering, the paper is titled "On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit" by Pennycook et al.

Schott’s Miscellany has a nice section on proverbs that contradict each other. E.g. ‘Many hands make light work’ vs ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’.

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.” ~ George W. Bush

It's easier to count your chickens before they hatch if you put all your eggs in one basket.

I was riding my unicycle in the park. A kid asked me why I only had one wheel. I said "If I didn't, I'd be walking!"

What's A Load Of Nonsense? "Thoughts and prayers"

In my early teens I spotted a sign in a bookshop that said, ‘We are sorry, but book tokens cannot be exchanged for cash’ ‘How do you sell them then?’, I asked.

Loved their choice of poster child.

"No leg's too short to reach the ground." Unless your legs are profoundly uneven.

You can pick your nose, and you can pick your friends... but you can't pick your friend's nose. Yes you can. The friendship will never be the same... but you can do it.

"More people have been to Russia than I have"

That one about infinity can be understood to mean that a way to comprehend the concept of infinity is to picture a circumstance with multiple possible outcomes, then imagine all of those taking place and not taking place, simultaneously.

When a historian says that this/these events/actions 'changed history'...cannot change anything that hasn't happened, and how soon would you know it had any influence on anything that might've not happened if the event hadn't taken place?

The advice printed on a fire emergency card posted at my local bingo hall: "In case of fire, don't not panic."

"No legs too short to reach the ground",...... sounds like something Ronnie Corbet would say in one of his monologues. 😂

“There is none so blind as he who cannot see”-Fernwood Tonight

my favourite are versions of "this page is a black page" on test papers. It isn't blank anymore since you have something written on it.

How about the greatest profundity of them all: “it is what it is”

This reminds me of Howard Schultz's germ of a Presidential run in 2020. "Politics is broken" and "We need a solution that risks the imagination of a new kind of possibility."

"oh,go ahead and cry if you're hurt.... You'll pee less later." Grandma ~

New age bullshit generator. Ah, I have a new nickname for my boss.

Or, Sandi, as Allan would tell you, "No ground is too short to reach the legs."

When you come to a fork in the road, take it ~ Yogi Berra

"Life is like a box of chocolates; it doesn't last long if you're fat." ~ Joe Lycett

i browsed the comments for extras and was not disappointed

“We don’t talk because we have something to say, we have something to say, because we talk.” “Only a short man can get underneath you.” “It only rains below the clouds” “You can’t climb a tree if you have your hands full”

I light the proverbs that sound profound, but so does the contradiction. For example, he who hesitates is lost, but also look before you leap.

“A man that’s walked 50 miles can’t change his shoes.” “Take each week as they end.” “No man is too tall for a doorway taller than them.”

HOW ABOUT the COVID WARNING announced in trains? “Stay home if not feeling well and go get tested!” 👀🤔🤨

My biggest bugbear was when (particularly) Americans say "I could care less," when they mean "I couldn't care less." But recently I've begun to notice the number of times they say something "cannot be understated" when they mean "cannot be overstated".

I love the old classic: I could care less. Get's me every time.

Weird how Phill had that ready when they don't see they questions beforehand....maybe he's the one who demands that he does?

America is the home of Democracy

I remember there was a Deepak Chopra parody twitter account that used the same principles to generate nonsense deepeties indistinguishable from the stuff that was on the official Deepak twitter feed.

Gravity: Not just a good idea, it's the law

My favourite is "it takes three sticks to make a wigwam" I don't know what it means, but surely thats the point.

No matter where you go, there you are.

No head injury is too trivial to be ignored.

Now the no legs are too short the reach the ground really is profoundly funny.

I think the phrase I'll make my own luck is a rip on the idea of luck in general, just take everything as it comes and it's best not to focus on the ups or the downs too much.

You can't make an omelette without breaking a chicken's heart.

If you push something hard enough, it *will* fall over.

Perceptual reality transcends subtle truth is actually quite good, albeit worded a bit oddly. I take it to mean that people spout and try to get you to believe in lots of nonsense, while trying to elevate the prestige of their positions by claiming subtilty and hidden truth that most people "just don't get", all the while their positions can easily be refuted by just looking at the world, i.e. perceptual reality. I'd rephrase it to something like "The world can unteach you a load of complexity", or "Subtle truths are often destroyed by reality"

I was waiting for 'colorless green ideas sleep furiously'

“I have long legs, they go all the way up to my hips.”

how much you wanna bet the geezer in Kettering making stickers is James Acaster

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

continue on

2:15 yes! take what holly walsh said, put it in inverse (nonsense to meaning rather than meaning to nonsense), and it's kind of my obsession. automated announcements from train stations, cruise ships, phone services, etc when removed from their real context have that _precise_ blend that creates a sense of meaning out of nonsense. entirely innocuous announcements, presented in the correct way, have this ridiculous faux-deep feeling to them. "customers are advised that closed-circuit television and remote video monitoring is in use," "the number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service," "please stand back from the platform edge" - taken without context and presented as focal points rather than background noise, they all _feel_ significant even though they really aren't. it's really no different from that one picture of a vending machine with a note that says "the light inside is broken but i still work." it's so silly, i love it.

I don't know. I think 2.6 would be pretty near my averaging of them, even knowing they are randomly generated. The last one is a 5/5.

0:29 I think Nish may have missed the rhetorical point of that phrase / sentiment...

It's always in the last place you look

A man with 1 leg views the world askew, but the man with no legs is well grounded.

Every 60 seconds in Africa, a minute passes.

NFTs

Hasn't that wise man ever seen a restaurant or cafe after closing-time with its chairs upside-down on the tables?

Where's Russell Brand when we need him?

The best way to be is to be

You can’t fall off the floor.

At the airport check-in-“Has anybody tampered with your luggage without your knowledge?”

When you change the way you look at things the things you look at change.

I think the researchers are the ones to miss the point. The only difference between the profound and bullshit, is where you're standing.

What's the difference between a duck? One of it's legs is both the same.

"Expect the unexpected"

Russel Brand laughs in 5,7 million subscribers...

Jabberwocky

There's clearly something wrong with me because I thought all of those banal platitudes were insightful in their own ways 🤣

Laugh tracks are the essence of humour.

"I make my own luck" is what rich people say, knowing 99% of people wish they had the same things.

Amateurs! I've read Deleuze-Guattari

You can't throw without letting go

3:31 I find all of those sayings nonsense. I do not know what they mean at all.

What about if you don't have any legs? Look at Mozart - he was only from the chest and up. Despite this obvious physical handicap, mr Mozart was happily married... ....but mrs Mozart wasn't! She went all the way to the floor! (Joke by Victor Borge)

Those sound like Jordan Peterson quotes

Damn it calling me out for being high as shit

All bleeding stops…… eventually!

Either you know it or you don't.

I disagree with Nish. Now hear me out. Luck doesn't exist, when we are playing the lottery, no one has some unseen power that makes them more likely to win. But how we perceive change is something we can control. That one person to who good things always happen is more lucky, it just seems as if more good things happen than bad. It has to do with their attitude, and yours. Luck only exists in the eyes of the beholder.

Reporters referring to a killing as a brutal murder. As opposed to a gentle murder?

What if your flying a plane taking off isn’t jumping ???

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single frantic search for your passport!

I've seen a cat that was so fat that it's legs couldn't reach the ground.

"I made it by the skin of my teeth".

Honestly, three of those four 'bullshit' claims are true. The conscious one doesn't make sense, but the other three do (although the infinite one is weak). Maybe the researchers aren't equipped 'upstairs' to understand what they're questioning

Everything Deepak Chopra says ever

You can ruin Top Gear, you can ruin A Question of Sport but thank god Paddy McGuinness is so thick he can't even spell QI.

just say anything in latin and it will sound profound. "Potest imperare", dixerunt; Quare? Nescimus. {"He can rule", they said; Why? We don't know.}

Boris Johnson…..

You can't jump without landing. But what if you jump and get sucked into a jet engine and turned into a smoothie? Would you consider your now soup form sneezing out of the back of the engine and all over the floor to be landing?

Oh come on - If one leg is significantly shorter than the other it won't reach the ground unless you tip over. Or bend the other knee. Or possibly step in a hole.

I’m autistic. Anytime anyone says anything to me it sounds like nonsense ngl

A wise man once said to me: "GET THE FUCK OFF THAT TRANSFORMER YOU LUNATICS" but I digress

Russell Brand has triggered QI, lol.

Ya can land in a plane

Say something that's a load of Nonsense?.... That's E V E R Y Episode OF, THIS show! LOL! Especially, iF it's coming from Alan!! LOL.