Among the frustrations in modern life are things so ridiculous, so patently illogical, that when you run into them you are propelled to ask, “When are we going to stop this?”
I have heard from several motorcar owners here of the local traffic police practice of pouncing on drivers who overtake on a double line. Officers will pursue these transgressors for blocks, and heavy fines are imposed. Clearly such drivers are in the wrong, but why is it then that nobody seems to get charged for tail-gating, or for overtaking on corners, or for driving through red lights? These are all offences that take place here almost hourly, and they are far more dangerous practices. Do you know anyone who has been charged for these things? It’s a peculiar double standard; when are we going to end it?
Sports championships are “best of” – 4 out of 7, 3 out of 5, etc. That’s the formula for a series in every sport – every one except cricket. In the recent 5-match West Indies/India ODI series, India wins the first three games, but the teams still play out the full five games. What for? It’s nonsensical. What is being achieved? What result will be changed by this? What could possibly be the motivation for the players to put out in those two meaningless games? Knowing the match means nothing, what is going to propel a player to bowl flat out and possibly pull a muscle, or dive for a catch and possibly hurt his shoulder, or move out to a fast bowler and take a blow on the helmet, or lunge to avoid a run-out and injure his hip? You’re up 3-0; that’s the end, but no, we play two more games. The silliness continued with ecstatic headlines when West Indies won game 4; hello? It was a nothing match; India had rested four of their best players; the series was over; what are we celebrating? Why are we still playing those two meaningless games? Imagine a team going up 4-1 in the baseball World Series, but in the locker room afterwards the coach says, “Remember, we have two more games to play.” It’s ridiculous, right? Well it happens in cricket all the time. When is that foolishness going to stop?
This one really gets to me: when are we going to stop using the disgraceful expression “ethnic cleansing”? The genocide that went on in Kosovo and the Congo and places like that was not any kind of cleansing; it was ethnic murder. People were being chopped up and mutilated simply because of the ethnic group they belonged to. Furthermore, apart from the horror of the act itself, to then choose to describe it as “cleansing” means that the people killed had to be something akin to vermin and therefore deserved elimination. “Ethnic cleansing” is a sick dance around the truth. Persons who repeat the phrase glibly are perpetuating the dance. We should challenge people to stop saying it because it is a sickening travesty. World famous newscasters such as Blitzer and Amanpour use it all the time without batting an eye. When are they going to stop?
Similarly, during the Iraq War, the Americans, with their raging mania for euphemisms, came up with the astonishing term “contractor” for soldiers working in concert with US Armed Forces. In conventional English the word “contractor” is generally used to designate someone involved in building construction; those people in Iraq whom the Americans designate as “contractors” are actually mercenaries doing what soldiers do – they move about armed with assault weapons and powerful grenades and they kill people. Calling them “contractors” is a fraudulent attempt to avoid calling a spade a spade. Come on America, you’re big boys now – when are you going to stop this subterfuge?
When you call the utility companies in Guyana to report a problem, you inevitably end up hearing a recorded message telling you earnestly that they have the customer in mind, and they value your call, “so please don’t hang up.” Fifteen minutes later you’re still hearing the message, and you still haven’t spoken to anyone. If they truly wanted to hear your problem, wouldn’t you think they would hire more operators to take all those valuable calls more quickly? When are they going to stop that charade? As one irate customer said to me recently, “The message they should put on the phone should say, “Don’t bother to call about your problem; just come to the office.”
All over Guyana, any day in the week, you run into some inferior product made in China. From umbrellas that that don’t last through two showers of rain (I know about that first-hand), or a USB cable that came apart in the computer one week after I bought it, Guyanese are learning from bitter experience to try and avoid Chinese gear. A mechanic friend of mine told me last week, “China has different levels of quality – A, B, C, etc. I think what they send to Guyana is all like Z.” The Chinese can certainly read the complaints in English about their goods; when are they going to stop churning out that cheap stuff that leaves you in the lurch?
In most countries, utility payments are due when you get a bill. Here the utility companies have adopted the astonishing position that if you don’t get a bill telling you what you owe, you still owe it. In practice this means that if the bill is late for any reason – issued late; delivered late by the post office; delivered to the wrong address; simply lost – the utility company is not responsible for your late payment and will cut you off without any warning whatsoever. In simple English, the utility companies’ position is that it is your responsibility to find out what you owe. When are they going to stop that? When somebody takes them to court for unfair business practice? (Is Nigel Hughes reading this?)
