Opposite effects 18 February 1984
Trevor Leggett was head of the Japanese Department of the BBC.
This is one of his broadcasts to Japan
Zubari for 18 February 1984
Hello listeners!
Have you ever done something which had exactly the reverse effect from what you intended? It is an interesting situation when that happens.
Recently, in Britain, a big new book of “Famous Quotations” came out, and in his advertisement for the book, the publisher cited a number of them. But one of them was in very big print, in the middle of the advertisement, and it was a quotation from the great American writer Emerson. The quotation was:
‘I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.’
Emerson wanted to discourage people from using quotations. He wanted people to try to speak from their own experience, not quoting from something read. But his saying had become, because he was himself so famous, the advertisement for a book on quotations!
How surprised he would have been!
Another example:
A small women’s club wrote to the great George Bernard Shaw, asking him for a donation to a fund which they wished to build up “to bring peace to the world.”
They were aiming at getting three hundred pounds to put an advertisement in a newspaper. Bernard Shaw wrote back to them and said: “The questions of peace and war are far too big for your little club. Try to do something practical for poor people in your locality” and he sent no money.
The women’s club managed to sell his letter for nearly three hundred pounds, with which they made up to the full three hundred, and then inserted their advertisement.
Again, it was a result which must have been completely unexpected to him – at any rate if he ever heard of it.
Sometimes what we do, becomes, itself, a cause of the opposite effect. An old but famous joke was the tape recording played at the beginning of an air journey: “This is the Captain welcoming you to this flight, and assuring you that this is the most modern plane with all the latest equipment, so that nothing can possibly go wrong…, go wrong …. go wrong …. go wrong…. “
The announcement which is meant to give the passengers a sense of security has the opposite effect….
Then there are cases where we say something, but the way in which we say it contradicts what we are saying. A big British company in Hong Kong advertised for a Chinese manager, and the advertisement said: “It is essential that the candidate should have perfect English.” As applicants appeared, the interviewer always began the interview with the question: “Is your English perfect?” One applicant replied: “Me English Number One expert, top-side!” There were six mistakes in the six words.
My last example is a famous joke which concerns English women. Men always complain that women (or at any rate English women) “take everything personally”. This means that if someone says, for instance, that sometimes people spoil the enjoyment of a concert by coughing during the music, a woman will tend to reply indignantly, “Well, I never cough during the music!” She sometimes seems to think that a general remark is directed at herself. Whether this is true or not, the joke runs like this:
A man says to a woman: “Oh, how can I discuss anything with you? Women always take things personally!”
She replies indignantly: ‘Well, I never take things personally!” The woman’s remark contradicts itself, because it is an example of taking a general statement personally. Sometimes these cases remind me of some of the Japanese Osaka clothes which were shown to me there, with a very plain exterior, but brilliant linings. The linings contradict the external appearance of frugality and simplicity.
© Trevot Leggett