An Expression That Needs To Go

Yes, Virginia [insert facts here].

I've come to hate this expression for two reasons. It reeks of presumed superiority, placing the speaker among those who presumably know what the unwashed, stupid masses don't. I may be a sneering elitist, but the arrogance of the expression makes my back teeth itch.

And when did Virginia get mixed up in this? Is Virginia a notable home of the unaware? The University of Virginia is a world renowned school founded by Thomas Jefferson. It serves as headquarters to one of the premier political science schools in the U.S., an indication that a good many people in Virginia are conscious of trends in the outside world. Virginia houses many of the more conservative media types and politicos who labor in D.C. They can be silly and ignorant, but their ignorance is more a function of their self-serving omissions of unflattering or inconvenient truths than it is of abject idiocy. Virginia native Jerry Falwell may be a bigot and a twit, but he's a well-educated bigot and twit. If it's educational dead zones you're after, you need to go farther south.

When confronted with phrases like "Yes, Virginia", I'm reminded of William Strunk's advice on the use of an emptier phrase: "The fact that". Yes, Virginia, those who believe they are possessed of truths or facts should simply state them, without advance billing. Otherwise, the writer looks like he's just dressing up his obvious points with flourishes meant to make him look cleverer than he is.

UPDATE: Well, I fucked up. I had no idea that Virginia referred to a little girl whose father wrote the New York Sun requesting an article that would reassure his daughter that Santa Claus existed. I apologize for the error. Even so, the phrase needs to go because it is doubly condescending to speak to adult readers as if they were eight-year olds.