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Unintended Consequences
Aug. 30th, 2009 12:46 pmA respected English barrister is advertising a programme on Radio 4. She talks of "The Law of Unintended Consequences" and asks whether the legal profession should not have foreseen that when they backed the introduction certain laws, such as that of guaranteeing the anonymity of accusers in rape trials, there would be side effects that might not be so desirable?
Well, the obvious answer to that one is, "yes, you dumbfucks, of course you should", but that's by-the-by. It was the final sentence that caught my ear. It ran something along the lines of"
Wow, I thought, there's a clasic lawyerism. I wondered whether they didn't teach logic in law school, or whether they did, but the main thrust of the course was how to sidestep it. Let's just break down the meaning here.
How the introduction of "A" meant, not just "B" (non-metaphor), but also "C"(metaphor).
Indeed, the sentence seems to me to say "not only had unintended consequences, but also had unintended consequences", although one could I suppose argue that the metaphor is not precisely equal to the non-metaphore. Then again, non-metaphors rarely are equal to their metaphorical "equivalent".
Then again, perhaps its just me, but I really don't think someone whose area of work is (I would hope) the clear and unambiguous use of English should be content to put out an advert for a programme on Radio 4 (i.e., something which has been vetted and approved) that blithely mixes metaphor and non-metaphor in such a way. If I tried it, my ex-English teacher would not just turn in her grave, but also rise up from it and slap me.
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Full marks to Anne Robinson. Not often that I say that. But in today's Sunday Times she makes the simple logical point that seems to have escaped most women in the meejuh of her age, -- that although it is true that television is biased against older women compared with older men, when women are younger, they get opportunities that men do not. Moira Stuart is the lead arguer that older women in TV are cast aside while men of the same age are not, without caring to mention that, if you are a 25-year-old bloke going for a job on TV, and there's an equally bright 25-year-old woman who is also good eye-candy, then the 25-year-old bloke can forget it.
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Meanwhile in the business section, John Waples comes up with a logical reason (with hindsight, again, of course), while the "sell in May and go away" mantra has become a load of bollocks. If you sold on April 30 and went away, you wouldn't be feeling very happy at the moment. Waples posits that in the UK, companies are now required to issue their interim figures within two months of June 30 (one reason why I was so fucking busy on Thursday!). That means that whole rafts of information now appear when in the old days, everyone was away on holiday.
Unfortunately Waples (or the sub-editor, if there was one) then enters famous schoolboy howler for junior journalists' land by referring to the "St Ledger" -- not once, but twice. I think that I came across this same howler in the FT a few years back. Perhaps it's a blind spot for financial sub-editors/journalists. Repeat after me... St Leger.
Then again, simple bad journalism appears to be rife in the BBC these days. The major irritating habit (often experienced on the World Service) is that if you miss the very start of a news piece (i.e., if you are "hearing" but not really "listening", but then it grabs your attention, you can often hear a piece some five-minutes long without the broadcast journalist repeating what the story is about (i.e. where he's speaking from). So you end up knowing all about the story (say, maltreated domestic servants) apart from what fucking country it's taking place in. Then it goes back to the studio announcer, who simply says "Chris Morris there". "WHERE????" I feel like screaming at the radio.
BBC Three, where I don't expect proper journalism from the likes of Bowman and Yates, did there own take on this, when they did a 10-minute piece on the "mystery guests" in the NME Tent. All the build up, then the guests appear to a fanatic audience, then several vox-pop interviews afterwards saying "Yeah, magic, amazing!" but, to my disappointment (because I failed to recognize these superstars either by face or the brief clip music) at no point did Bowman say who these guests were! Presumably they are as famous as the Beatles were in the 1960s, but I somehow doubt it. No matter, although you might say "and he needs no introduction", that's just a formality. You always do the introduction anyway, even for The Beatles. Or perhaps I'm being very old fashioned?
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Well, the obvious answer to that one is, "yes, you dumbfucks, of course you should", but that's by-the-by. It was the final sentence that caught my ear. It ran something along the lines of"
I'll be looking at how the introduction of some laws not only had unintended consequences, but which also bore bitter fruit."
Wow, I thought, there's a clasic lawyerism. I wondered whether they didn't teach logic in law school, or whether they did, but the main thrust of the course was how to sidestep it. Let's just break down the meaning here.
How the introduction of "A" meant, not just "B" (non-metaphor), but also "C"(metaphor).
Indeed, the sentence seems to me to say "not only had unintended consequences, but also had unintended consequences", although one could I suppose argue that the metaphor is not precisely equal to the non-metaphore. Then again, non-metaphors rarely are equal to their metaphorical "equivalent".
Then again, perhaps its just me, but I really don't think someone whose area of work is (I would hope) the clear and unambiguous use of English should be content to put out an advert for a programme on Radio 4 (i.e., something which has been vetted and approved) that blithely mixes metaphor and non-metaphor in such a way. If I tried it, my ex-English teacher would not just turn in her grave, but also rise up from it and slap me.
++++++++++
Full marks to Anne Robinson. Not often that I say that. But in today's Sunday Times she makes the simple logical point that seems to have escaped most women in the meejuh of her age, -- that although it is true that television is biased against older women compared with older men, when women are younger, they get opportunities that men do not. Moira Stuart is the lead arguer that older women in TV are cast aside while men of the same age are not, without caring to mention that, if you are a 25-year-old bloke going for a job on TV, and there's an equally bright 25-year-old woman who is also good eye-candy, then the 25-year-old bloke can forget it.
+++++++++++
Meanwhile in the business section, John Waples comes up with a logical reason (with hindsight, again, of course), while the "sell in May and go away" mantra has become a load of bollocks. If you sold on April 30 and went away, you wouldn't be feeling very happy at the moment. Waples posits that in the UK, companies are now required to issue their interim figures within two months of June 30 (one reason why I was so fucking busy on Thursday!). That means that whole rafts of information now appear when in the old days, everyone was away on holiday.
Unfortunately Waples (or the sub-editor, if there was one) then enters famous schoolboy howler for junior journalists' land by referring to the "St Ledger" -- not once, but twice. I think that I came across this same howler in the FT a few years back. Perhaps it's a blind spot for financial sub-editors/journalists. Repeat after me... St Leger.
Then again, simple bad journalism appears to be rife in the BBC these days. The major irritating habit (often experienced on the World Service) is that if you miss the very start of a news piece (i.e., if you are "hearing" but not really "listening", but then it grabs your attention, you can often hear a piece some five-minutes long without the broadcast journalist repeating what the story is about (i.e. where he's speaking from). So you end up knowing all about the story (say, maltreated domestic servants) apart from what fucking country it's taking place in. Then it goes back to the studio announcer, who simply says "Chris Morris there". "WHERE????" I feel like screaming at the radio.
BBC Three, where I don't expect proper journalism from the likes of Bowman and Yates, did there own take on this, when they did a 10-minute piece on the "mystery guests" in the NME Tent. All the build up, then the guests appear to a fanatic audience, then several vox-pop interviews afterwards saying "Yeah, magic, amazing!" but, to my disappointment (because I failed to recognize these superstars either by face or the brief clip music) at no point did Bowman say who these guests were! Presumably they are as famous as the Beatles were in the 1960s, but I somehow doubt it. No matter, although you might say "and he needs no introduction", that's just a formality. You always do the introduction anyway, even for The Beatles. Or perhaps I'm being very old fashioned?
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