Pedantic Semantics

I resurrected a section for the radio, last Saturday, entitled Semantic Pedantic. It usually deals with turns of phrase that annoy me, or words what are get mispelt a lot coz no1 reedz bwks nemo. It has been awhile since any came to my attention and genuinely annoyed me, and I have learnt my lesson of manufacturing annoyance, it changes your mindset so that you are dissecting anything for the potentially annoying nugget, not a pleasant outlook. The lesson is, if you aren't Charlie Brooker, don't try to be.

Nevertheless, last week two phrases entered my world, and their presence affected me in some way.

The first phrase is 'rhyme nor reason', which didn't annoy me, as much as perplex me. For me, reason is a tenet of central importance in the grand scale of everything. For me, the source of so much of the awful that there is in the world stems from unreasonable or illogical attitudes. Any sort of meaningful progress has its roots in the logical and the reasoned, science is the ultimate manifestation of this.

The assumption embedded in this phrase is that rhyme is as persuasive a tool as reason. From my point of view it is saying that if something doesn't make sense, then if you'd like it to hold the same punch, make your argument rhyme. I made a bit of a song and dance about this on Saturday, pointing out that it is a bit ridiculous, but when considering the clout advertising and marketing has, and the penchant that industry has for rhyme, it doesn't seem half as ridiculous. I had come to think that consumers were cannier in their attitudes towards adverts, but I recently overheard someone asking "Which is best, gocompare or moneysupermarket.com?", I have come to doubt this. Both of these money website whateverthehelltheyare have run lengthy television campaigns, to the point where the individual assumed they were the only two worth checking, possibly not even considering that there might be other options. Bah, humbug. Didn't Bill Hicks have something to say to people who worked in advertising?

Okay, so lets move away from preaching about the evils of advertising, although I suppose this may turn out to be the most directly hypocritical blog post I have written.

The next phrase deals with the writing up of comedy acts, which I suppose is a part of advertising, although I would argue it is a more sincere process than mass media advertising I was discussing earlier. For example, when a new comedy is to be aired, they show a clip of the show and tell you when it's on, they tend not to air something completely unrelated and then tag a vague strap line to it. I'm lovin' it, indeed. (This is a hate for another entry). I do foresee a time when comedy will be advertised as such, and when it comes I will look on knowingly and tut.

But for now, even with all the advertising/PR savvy in the world, there is only one way to describe a comedy act/comedian. One lazy, thoughtless phrase that gets tagged on to everyone, which, though this isn't really an accurate measure, typed into google returns over 23,600,000 results. While that may not be reliable evidence as to how widespread this phrase is, it is deliciously ironic.

The phrase is 'unique brand of humour'.

A quick glance over the first few pages of results show that this phrase is attributed to: Katy Brand, Russell Brand, Joe Pasquale, Warren Holstein, Jo Brand, Bill Bailey, Cartoonists, John Cleese, Joel Chasnoff, Jerry Seinfeld, Tom Cheney, webcomic XKCD, Andy Kaufman, Roy and HG, Rove McManus, Mick Molloy, Wendy Harmer and George Carlin.

I must admit, of the acts/etc listed above that I am aware of, their styles are quite distinct from each other. Katy, Russell and Jo have presumably made that list because journalists must feel it is compulsory to put the phrase in because their surname is Brand as well, do you get it, brand brand brand brand brand brand brand brand hahahahahahahhahaa. I am off my wits.

Given that that number of acts can be referred to with the same phrase, acts that are genuinely dissimilar to each other, isn't it safe to say that the phrase is fairly useless in practical terms? It is a phrase which is meant to describe an act, inform you in some way of their style, and yet it is so vague and non-descriptive that it can, correctly, describe such wildly different brands of humour.

I would like to propose a moratorium on the phrase, if only to force people to come up with a more meaningful phrase when they are describing a form of comedy.

So having used this blog to complain about advertising and the use of a specific page, I will admit that on the old web page for rhonddaradio, under the section which described the content of the Adam and Dafydd Weekend Antics show, the write-up for us almost certainly claimed that listeners would be subject to our unique brand of comedy. The phrase is not illustrative, which makes it of little use, but in our case it is also, unfortunately, not accurate.

As much as we put in the work and are trying always to do something new and not to tread too much on old ground, we are well aware that our podcasts and sketches are derivative. It is a staple comment from so many of the comedians I have heard interviewed that it takes a number of years to really find your voice comedically, and so while it does make me anxious when we stray into territory that is perhaps someone-esque I am not overly concerned at this point.

Our podcasts almost certainly owe a lot to other podcasts Collings and Herrin, Peacock & Gamble, Precious Little and The Trap in particular, I would say. But it is also the case that the amount of poetry I write increases if I am reading John Hegley, and my attitude tends to be more critical if I am reading Charlie Brooker. Perhaps this is just my propensity of absorbing things, such as the time when I went away on a trip, made a new friend and came home with a lisp.

The phrase 'unique brand of comedy/humour' falls flat at every hurdle, especially when describing The ACRE, as it was on the rhonddaradio website. There are three of us, and while our senses of humour aren't identical, there is certainly a lot of overlap.

It is quite ironic that my complaint about this phrase is, in itself, quite humourless. Not ironic enough to make it funny, however.

I am not as grumpy as this blog probably sounds. Although I desire a New Deluge to come and wash away all from the face of the Earth, resulting in the Death of Everyone.

Also annoyed that I missed 'Everyone Draw Mohammed Day'.

(O?O) <- This may, or may not, be him (it is him).