It pops up everywhere from ad campaigns to newsrooms: “Houston, we have a problem.”
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Or, “Houston, we don’t have a problem,” or “Houston, we have a [insert thing here].” According to a new piece in the Wall Street Journal, Houston natives are a bit sick of it.
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The cliche’d turn of phrase, a misquote of a warning from an astronaut to mission control in Houston during the 1970 Apollo 13 moon mission, reared its ugly head again during an Astros game last week, where newscasters made comments like, “Houston, tonight we have no problems. Houston, your team is going to the World Series!”
The real line, in case you’re wondering, is “Ok, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”
According to the Journal, the phrase has shown up literally thousands of times since 1982. 12,000 times in news articles and broadcasts alone, according to their search of the LexisNexis database.
There’s even a Twitter account dedicate to chastising people who overuse the phrase called @ughhouston.
Someone's not getting it…. https://t.co/P9UMlbdWfJ
— Ugh Houston (@UghHouston) October 26, 2017
https://twitter.com/tylerhunter23/status/922979118899228674
3 sayings Houstonians hate
– I love Dallas
– Whataburger is overrated
– Houston we have a problem— Joshua Buckley (@joshuabuckley) October 22, 2017
One Houston resident’s advice for anyone thinking it would be clever to use the phrase during the World Series pretty much sums up the general consensus: “Just stop. Please, stop.”
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