Maybe it’s just me … and all other normal people. But I’m more worried about policemen who abuse authority than those too “culturally insensitive” in their cheerful greetings.
Yes, that’s the latest crisis: Bobbies who say “Good evenin’ all” as they walk the beat.
Or so says a police manual published in the English county of Warwickshire. The manual claims that this greeting is culturally confusing. Even if the beloved Dixon of Dixon of Dock Green, Britain’s long-running answer to The Andy Griffith Show, always opened with just those genial words.
A police spokesman explains that “‘afternoon’ and ‘evening’ are somewhat subjective in meaning.… In many cultures the term evening is linked to time of day when people have their main meal of the day.”
Someone’s gotta respond to this kind of concocted quandary, and a woman named Marie Clair of a group called the Plain English Campaign has taken on the chore. She asks: “Is anyone really going to be confused by [the word] ‘evening’? And if you can’t say what a lovely afternoon it is, what are you meant to say — what a lovely 3 PM?”
Other British agencies are targeting harmless words like “child” and “youngster.”
So, crime may be raging in the sceptered isle, but at least the bureaucratic monitors of politesse are bravely battling “insensitive” clarity and good will.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
3 replies on “What Would Dixon Do?”
You write
“A police spokesman explains”
spokesMAN?
Only a savage brute of a scribe would employ such offensive language!!!
Keep up the good work; may I send you some more ink?
One savage to another. jbh
»The same guide also warns against the phrases ‘manning the phones’, ‘layman’s terms’ and ‘the tax man’, for ‘making women invisible’. [Note that these people put the period — and commas — after a single or double quote. How utterly quaint!]
Oh, gosh, this reminded me of the old comedy “Soap,” (note the comma) in which Burt (Richard Mulligan) thought he had the power of invisibility, leading to hilarious behavior when he thought he was “invisible.” Loved this show until it self-destructed by inanity.
As for “invisible women,” would this require silence while invisible? Would silence be preferable? (So a guy doesn’t have to ask, “Can this wait for a commercial, puh-LEEZ?”; wives intuitively know when a spoken line crucial to the plot is about to come up; if you’re lucky, they simply cough…or pout silently when asked. Of course, you can always « if you’re set up for it. This really gets their collective goat…but they keep talking, anyway. Ya can’t win!) Or perhaps a bell around the neck might suffice? Dare I say it? That way, you’ll know where the pu$$y is! (Yeth, I dare.)
The Brits: they vote themselves a self-inflicted crime wave with gun confiscation. A shopkeep shoots a robber caught in the act; the shopkeeper gets 10 years (ten for shooting the robber; one for having the gun), while the robber serves his hospital stay and walks. Go figger.
Then, Gordon Brown sold half their gold supply in what? ’02… just before it started its walk up to 5 – 6 times the price. Great decisions of our age? Hod-ly (you have to imagine John Houseman saying it). India paid up the wazoo for 200 “tonnes” (limeys) bought from the IMF.
“Homosexual”? Hey, they’re here; they’re queer; *I’VE* gotten over it! “Bugger off, there!” as the Brit bobbies probably can’t say, either. Gays are a wealthy demographic, so I would invest in a co that targeted gays if the fund/tech numbers were good, low p/e.
BUT…we’ll always have, “Bond… James Bond.” (Well, that AND Paris.) Except for Roger Moore, whom George Lazenby blew out of the water, but only did one Bond movie, “In Her Majesties SS.” Moore was great as The Saint TV show (Brit), but the snappy theme music really helped. The Brits (including the Beatles) can write fab theme songs. Monte Norman wrote the original 007 theme song, which they STILL have to work into every Bond flick sooner or later.
Apropos of nothing: Willie Sutton was a noted bank robber WAY back when. Asked why he did this, he notably replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” The FBI has an interesting write-up of him at:
WARNING! If you haven’t finished reading Mr Jacob’s comments, you can’t read the Sutton story yet, so just hold it right there, buster! Grrr.
Finished? Okay, then…copy/paste away! Great read. Won’t take all day.
http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/sutton/sutton.htm
Whoa! Ya don’t have to copy/paste a link! Learn something new every day, huh?