One of my recent speech pet peeves has been the phrase “I’m just sayin’.”

I realized a couple of weeks ago that I was saying this phrase, which irritates me because it essentially tries to make something that a person is saying less dramatic than it actually is.

For instance, “Your sister might be telling the truth, but I saw her yesterday making out with your boyfriend. I’m just sayin’.”

In many ways, it’s a defense mechanism, meant to somehow remove blame from oneself for delivering the news. It also seems to be trying to soften the blow, or even to say, “I told you so.” In short, the phrase doesn’t actually seem to be serving any useful purpose, and I’m not sure how everyone started saying it all of the sudden. As far as I know, people weren’t saying this phrase a year ago, or perhaps I just never noticed how annoying it was until recently.

I’ve had to catch myself saying it since I realized how annoying it is. Mostly, I am probably annoyed because it has been used a lot recently to tell me things that I don’t really want to hear about my own life. But, I KNOW you are saying it, you don’t have to tell me.