First Draft #5: a newsletter on public language

Bad metaphors, mad conspiracies, jargon and more

BREXIT: THE LONG SLIDE 

From the 2016 referendum until the present day, the advocates of Brexit have won every vote, in Parliament and in the country. This is at least in part down to the terrible arguments practiced by the remain side. The defeat of the pro-Europeans has been rhetorical and it has been metaphorical.

At every stage of the dispute pro-Europeans have referred to the next stage as “a cliff-edge”. Last week a cartoon depicted Boris Johnson, on the edge of a cliff, sitting at a table with Ursula von der Leyen. The Prime Minister says “I’m warning you” while preparing to cut the thread that is preventing him from toppling backwards.

But Brexit is not usefully described as a cliff-edge. A fall off the edge of a cliff is rapid, dramatic and catastrophic, perhaps even fatal. Brexit is none of these things. It is instead slow and boring and its costs are revealed gradually rather than instantly.  

If Brexit is to be pictured as something bad the appropriate image is not a cliff-edge but a slide with a not especially steep gradient. Brexit will take us slowly downwards. We will end up at the bottom of the cliff but getting there will be a lot less drastic.

This really matters because, at every stage, critics of Brexit have predicted imminent and dramatic chaos. And, so far, it just hasn’t been like that although there is already plenty of evidence that we might be on a slow slide. (PC)

METAPHORS WE LIVE BY

Metaphor abuse comes in many forms. Sometimes we use the wrong metaphor. Sometimes the metaphor itself is just plain wrong. They say “nothing dries faster than tears”. Well, actually most things do. Salty water dries slower than salt-free water (though crocodile tears, as Matt Hancock showed, dry quickly too). “Fish rot from the head down” is an evocative image often used to describe corrupt regimes. Alas, fish in fact rot from the inside. Facing rising coronavirus cases but with a vaccine on the horizon, many have noted that it is “always darkest before the dawn.” Unequivocally untrue, says the Davidson Institute of Science Education. And, with my deepest apologies to Stevie Nicks, there are dry thunderstorms. (JW) 

TROUBLING HUMAN TENDENCY OF THE MONTH: APOPHENIA 

A red car whizzes by as the town of Redcar is mentioned on the podcast you’re listening to. Later, a colleague shows you a picture of her new car. It’s red. Is something, or someone, sending you a message? Answer “yes”, and you’re experiencing apophenia, the human tendency to see patterns in randomness. Apophenia transforms screws and doorknobs into faces. It’s why, when you stare at video static, shapes and figures dance across the screen. 

Humans’ pattern-detecting prowess has evolutionary advantages, but leaves us susceptible to conspiracy theories. Coronavirus emerged in China just as the superpower began exporting 5G. That can’t be a coincidence, right? The more complicated and chaotic the world becomes, the more opportunity we have to perceive patterns, codes and symbols that aren’t there. 

And the more seductive the illusion of control. There’s a perverse comfort knowing someone, somewhere, has things planned out, even if that someone is bad. The seduction is so powerful that it can cleave friendships, marriages and families apart. Vox recently reported that the internet abounds with stories of loved ones lost to QAnon, the online conspiracy that casts Trump as saviour from paedophilic Democrats.  

Experts agree that if someone you care about is in thrall to a conspiracy, persuasion begins with empathy. Mockery tends to make people double down. Shunning is risky, too, as it feeds the notion of truth being covertly suppressed. 

Joan Donovan, a disinformation expert at Harvard, recommends the “truth sandwich” approach, invented by linguist George Lakoff. State what’s true, debunk the conspiracy, then state what’s true again. For the 5G conspiracy, you would say, “Coronavirus is an airborne virus, which means it is transmitted through coughing and sneezing. Because viruses are not transmitted via radio waves, coronavirus, an airborne virus, can’t be carried by 5G.” It’s repetitive, and that’s the point. To debunk oft-repeated lies, says Lakoff, you must repeat the truth. (AD)

JARGON BUSTERS 1: CASCADE

“Please cascade to your people,” I was instructed. A jargon buster’s delight. “Cascade” is quite a beautiful word really. To read it is to see a crashing waterfall, or curling locks falling over a shoulder. What it has come to mean, however, is “send to everyone”. A cascade suggests a hierarchy, with me at the pinnacle, so how strange to follow it with the vague “people” and not “staff” or “employees”. Perhaps it was an attempt to soften that uncouth sense of hierarchy, but if so it was majestically undone by my apparent ownership of them. Like some feudal lord, information cascades from me to my subjects. If only. (JW)

JARGON BUSTERS 2: REVERT

After cascading, I was informed that I must “revert”. At home, we reply. At work, apparently, we revert. But why that ugly word? Revert arrived in England via the Old French - revertir - and the Latin - revertere. The meaning then was to “turn back”. Today, in everyday English, revert still hews to that meaning: to revert is to return to things as they were. So how did revert end up replacing reply at work? Perhaps it is the influence of Indian English: the two are interchangeable there. But far more likely, I think, is the impression of greater formality and professionalism the word conveys. To revert is to reply in a suit and a tie. Reverting is best done in combat fatigues under heavy fire. When I revert, you know I mean business. But what a shame we can’t revert from Business to Everyday English. (JW)

TWITTER ISN’T REAL LIFE

“Our whole ethos,” said Biden campaign digital director Rob Flaherty last week, “was ‘Twitter isn’t real life.’” From the start of the primary, team Biden blocked out the disapproving din of the Twitter-addicted online left. Out went the GIFs and lols of Hillary’s 2016 campaign. In came a more formal approach to the platform.

A new study vindicates Flaherty’s method. Priorities USA, the Democratic campaign group, wanted to see if Twitter engagement could replace expensive and time consuming ad testing. They showed viral ads to five treatment groups (and one control group who saw no ads), each made up of around 700 swing state voters. They then asked everyone in each group to say how likely they were to vote for each candidate. 

The study found Twitter engagement and persuasion are indeed correlated, but negatively. The better an ad did on Twitter, the less it persuaded swing state voters. The most viral ad they tested (a Lincoln Project clip decrying Trump’s inaction on Russia’s placing of bounties on US troops) was the least persuasive of all. A valuable reminder that those with the most likes are seldom liked the most. (AD)

FOOLS AND MADMEN

Voltaire once bemoaned 18th century France’s incredulity at the English practice of inoculation. The English, he wrote in “On Inoculation”, were seen as “fools and madmen” for administering tiny doses of small-pox to their children. The French paid a heavy price for their scepticism. In 1723, some 40,000 Parisians died of the disease, close to a tenth of the city’s population. In 1774, the King himself succumbed. A visitor to the dying Louis XV said his sore-ridden face resembled a “mask of bronze”. 

It was enough to spook his successor, Louis XVI, into submitting to inoculation. His two young brothers (the entire line of succession) were inoculated at the same time. It was a success. Parisian aristocrats – the 18th century version of influencers – wore headdresses (“pouf a l’inoculation”) to commemorate the event, and public opinion turned in favour of the practice. Rates of small-pox began to fall. And the King? He succumbed to the guillotine instead. (ZH)

LANGUAGE AND BEYOND 

• The tendency of the pro-Europeans to predict a catastrophe that does not arrive has tempted their critics to accuse them of crying wolf. Here, on Newsnight, Phil tells Emily Maitlis why Aesop’s The Boy Who Cried Wolf is not a good fable for the Brexit crew to use. 

• John Le Carré’s 2002 New Yorker article on his con artist father, which later formed part of his autobiography, is wonderful.

• An obituarist memorably says Le Carré’s books “hum with the flavorful and recondite language of espionage”. But, as Jason Cowley notes in the New Statesman, this lexicon - with words like “mole”, “honey trap”, “tradecraft” - is one Le Carré invented. 

• There are few endeavours more self-defeating than trying to sound clever when writing, as this article in HBR points out. 

• A brilliant essay on the surprising pervasiveness of outlandish beliefs about the US election, and how to combat them.

• That Churchill laid out his speeches like verse is a reminder of the importance of good typography.

• Can historical data predict the decline of civilisation? Peter Turchin thinks so.

• An entertaining report on “Humaning”, the latest marketing buzzword uniting the human race in despair.  

• Coinage of the month: “Corporate jargon monoxide”. The verdict of Bob Sutton, Stanford psychology professor, on “humaning”. 

New from us:

• It’s the fish who have us hooked, says Josh in City AM. 

• Also in City AM, Josh weighs in on whether supermarkets should return their business rate relief. 

• Phil’s New Statesman column with some advice for Sir Keir Starmer. 

One last thing… 

At The Draft we’re specialists in writing and rhetoric. We help businesses and public figures make their case more persuasively. If you could use our help, get in touch. And if you enjoy First Draft, forward it on. Thanks for reading.