Why is the phrase "to be honest (tbh)" so popular on this forum?

It's a phrase people use when they say something that could be vaguely surprising, mildly offensive or when exposing a weakness. For example:
"I quite enjoyed watching Glee, tbh"
"tbh" is suffixed in this case because admitting to having enjoyed Glee would be seen as unusal and perhaps indicating a flawed character.

However, much like "lol" it has started to be used in a much wider context, almost as an extension of punctuation.
 
I sometimes assume it means that the person is lying. It's mildly entertaining that way and it makes some sense.

It's just meaningless characters, the textual equivalent of someone making meaningless noises while speaking. Well, almost. In speech it might be caused by some sort of handicap. In text, it's just plopping in meaningless rubbish for no reason and with no excuse.
 
Andy__C said:
try watching a Welsh Rugby player being interviewed.... the full 'tbh' is said up to 5 times a sentence.
Click to expand...

That sounds worse than watching an English football player being interviewed and hearing "at the end of the day" half a dozen times.
 
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