weather
“And, to use the tired cliche, but it’s true — it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.”
In order to make the comment in an un-ironic fashion, I had to add the qualifications. In terms of argumentation, A thing you don’t do if the goal is “winning”, as the counter-argurer will throw back the ” you yourself just admitted (qualification).”. (If the argument purpose is exchanging and feeling out nuances in things, and/or if the terms of the debate are not adverserial , you are in better shape with them.)
As goes the reason for the qualification here — well, type the phrase and you get a “and it’s the stupidity”. Though, to be sure, this itself enters the domain of ” tired cliche”.
A bit of an etymology on “not the heat, humidity” would be nice — locating the moment it came to bug everybody. The problem I have right now is… It does happen to accurately describe the discomfort from the weather, and it is the only accurate descriptor.