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The Rules of Writing Rules

How Boris was f***ed at the word at

There have been times during this elongated episode of Black Mirror, when I’ve found myself wondering……what would have happened if, instead of being told to stay home, alert, indoors, aware and whatever else, there had been another thing we were told must be done in order to Protect the NHS and Save Lives.

Nothing too crazy, like, I dunno, drink bleach. No one would believe that. Apart from the thousands of American bleach stockpilers of course but hey, they voted Trump so go figure.

No. Something just a little unusual, like

I imagine there would be a huge public outcry. I should think we would all be calling for Boris’ resignation; thumbs a-whirr as the nation punched their scream-tweets, safely naked under duvets. No point taking risks is there, we would think to ourselves, typing away to show the Establishment we wouldn’t take this nonsense lying down. As we were lying down.

Why would we do something so asinine? We’re intelligent folk who will weigh up the balance of evidence available to us and then make up our own minds, thank you very much.

Except that’s not true. Whether we agree with them or not, we all need rules. There cannot be order in society without our innate need to conform. To do what the person speaking loudest tells us we should do.

That’s because they are the experts though, some say. Well, how are you defining ‘expert’? There will be those medically trained — being “the best” is purely subjective — but they may know nothing about, for example, our sociological needs.

Or there are the most financially astute who will have been educated by those thought to be more knowledgeable at the time. Who beats whom now? And of course, being able to study and apply knowledge is a skill at theoretical practice. It says nothing about the ability to act.

Think of it this way. If we discovered that the Chief Medical Officer had never cooked anything in his life — was unable to even boil an egg, to use the tabloid shorthand — it wouldn’t matter a jot for the advice he was giving. And yet, deep down, most of us would start to question the validity of the words spoken by someone unable to fulfil such a basic task.

Saying we vote for these people is a weak defence too. It’s not that different from voting the popular kid in as Head Boy — we listen to soundbites, we follow the majority, we like a smile. We give them authority because we can’t be bothered. But they are just ordinary, fallible people like us.

An acquaintance of mine once told me that the law is our indicator of right and wrong and that is reason enough for it to be followed. I argue that the notion of what is right is decided by a minority, with very specific views of their own. Would we still say that it is wrong for women to vote, for alcohol to be drunk, for homosexuals to be, well homosexual… you get the gist.

What is there that we currently have as illegal that, in years to come, will have been repealed and looked back on with the eyes of historical apology. What we see as wrong now, that will seem naive and undemocratic, unfair and prejudiced.

It is the security we get from knowing that they are in place that matters.

We see rules as existing for some third person. Not us. The aim being to stop bad people doing bad things. We aren’t bad people. One of the psychological benefits of having rules is the implicit reminder of our own goodness and righteousness.

As we have seen this year, leave us to our own devices for even ten minutes, and the best we can do is start stockpiling toilet rolls and pasta. And we only do that because we saw someone in Australia doing it.

Without rules, we are the proverbial headless chickens. But without the rest of the chicken.

Which is why we care about the jingoistic advertising slogans the Government release as they sluttishly flit from strategy to idea to give-it-a-go and hope. Slogans embed themselves in the psyche and create indelible inner-mantras, feeling more true by virtue of being said more often.

We take comfort in the actions of our neighbour, as Stevie Wonder would take comfort in the hand of Roy Orbison for a stroll along Beachy Head.

It’s not easy to get people to do stuff. You’ll know that if you have children. Or if you’re a fascist dictator. Or if you manage a team in your office.

Or if you’re alive.

For a start, you must remember that we’re all quite busy doing all this existing. Think of the millions of computations our brains go through every day; working overtime just so we don’t kill ourselves lolloping from the bedroom to bathroom to defecate.

On top of that, we’re quite simple.

Being simple and busy means we can only take on board a single unit of additional information at a time. Preferably one that we don’t have to consciously examine. If you want to introduce new behaviour, you need a message that is as impossible to misinterpret — and as simple to undertake — as Walk, Don’t Walk.

Which leads us nicely to the first COVID messaging.

Side note aside, at the time the first message was put out by the UK Government, Coronavirus was still being used. After all, we couldn’t expect that our actions would cure a disease, merely pause a virus.

And for the most part, it worked as well as can be expected; aided by its simple transformation into threat — as testified by the number of times you’d have heard “Stay Home you Stupid C**t” shouted through the clapping if you stepped outside your front door in April.

The law may be officiated but laws, we create ourselves. You can pull the slogan apart by questioning the definition of “home” if you’ve time on your hands. But, on face value, it’s simple and memorable.

Well, almost memorable.

The Mirror, The Mail, ITV.com, Manchester Evening News, and Scotland’s First Minister, Jimmy Krankie and many more, took a liking to Stay Home. For those paying attention, that wasn’t the official Government wording, seen on press briefing podiums and souvenir door drops. That had an extra word.

Stay At Home.

From a general sense of interpretation, not entirely.

Semantically, including the at makes the statement active, like an order that requires an action. It’s the equivalent of ‘Go Home’.

Without it, it becomes passive. It encourages inaction. More like ‘Carry On’.

Who wants to get into debates about the adverb, noun, or prepositional values of the word home? Who gives a fig that we are so Americanised and language lazy that if we can drop two letters, by God we are going to do it?

Nobody. But there is a ripple effect. It’s the first chink seen in the message that, don’t forget, has to be as clear as ‘Walk’.

It’s a crack that slowly expands and exposes what amounts to just being a few vague words strung together, not the pandemic-saving oration Boris so desperately wanted.

This seemingly small, nuanced inconsistency is the first clue that the Government didn’t own the message and are still not in control of it.

This tiny difference should have made it clear that the approach taken with the second message was doomed to failure. And why all the messages since have blurred into a ball of confused wool.

That’s how metaphors don’t mix.

In case you think the better option would have been to leave the message as it was, you’re wrong. And it’s your fault.

The average attention span is now less than 8 seconds, so your inherent ennui switches you off to messages as soon as…..

Ok. You’ve moved on now haven’t you?!

And overlooking the optional at was of course just the beginning.

You can read about what happened next, and why we think society is now much more of a threat to itself than the virus ever could be, in the second part of the original article published on 1 Extra Word’s blog, (No More) Empty Words.

It’s just here for you to click. A little extra thought from 1 Extra Word.

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