TIPPING POINT?
Here is today’s question:
What is the difference between a
PANDA serenely sitting and eating shoots and leaves,
and
A PANDA having a meal, firing a
gun and departing?
The answer………. a comma.
Here is what I mean.
A Panda eats shoots and leaves.
A Panda eats, shoots and leaves.
The rules of language and
punctuation are complex; get them even a little wrong and, well anything can
happen, like causing a PANDA to act completely out of character. As Lynne Truss
says:
“We have
a language that is full of ambiguities; we have a way of expressing ourselves
that is often complex and elusive, poetic and modulated; all our thoughts can
be rendered with absolute clarity if we bother to put the right dots and
squiggles between the words in the right places. Proper punctuation is both the
sign and the cause of clear thinking. If it goes, the degree of intellectual
impoverishment we face is unimaginable.”
― Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
― Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
But these rules of language and
punctuation can also be a bit tiresome. Winston Churchill, himself a Nobel
Laureate in literature, demonstrated how silly was the rule about never ending
a sentence with a preposition with this: ‘this
is something up with which I will not put’.
Dealing with the language we have
is bad enough but having to incorporate new expressions into the language AND
to use them as intended by who ever invented them is a nightmare.
Take ‘The Tipping Point’ for
example. In his No.1 Best Seller of that name Malcolm Gladwell used this
expression when talking about why a particular
trend will “tip” into wide-scale popularity while another will ‘splutter and
fade into oblivion’. The subtitle to Gladwell’s book is ‘how little things can
make a big difference’. Sadly the term ‘tipping point’ is now used by just
about everyone to refer to just about any change. So it has lost its potency
and uniqueness.
Can all things, including health related issues, rise or
fall as a result of tipping points? If so they need to satisfy Gladwell’s ‘three
key factors that each play a role in determining whether a particular trend
will “tip” into wide-scale popularity’' being, the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the
Power of Context.
The Law of the
Few. ‘….many trends
are ushered into popularity by small groups of individuals who can be
classified as Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen.
Connectors are individuals who have ties in many different realms and act as
conduits between them, helping to engender connections, relationships, and
“cross-fertilization” that otherwise might not have ever occurred. Mavens are people who have a strong
compulsion to help other consumers by helping them make informed decisions. Salesmen are people whose
unusual charisma allows them to be extremely persuasive in inducing others’
buying decisions and behaviours.’
The Stickiness Factor: ‘ This refers to a unique quality that compels a
phenomenon to “stick” in the minds of the public and influence their future behaviour’.
The Power of
Context: ‘ If the environment or historical
moment in which a trend is introduced is not right, it is not as likely that
the tipping point will be attained.’
Let me attempt then to apply
Gladwell’s Tipping Point theory, first to one of the case studies that I will
be using in a forthcoming webinar I am delivering for the ISQua Fellowship
Programme and second to the advent and aftermath of the HIV AIDS epidemic. I am
not sure this will work but it should be interesting. I suspect that we may be
thinking catalyst than tipping point; let’s see.
Case Study
A surgeon is practising
beyond his professional knowledge and skills and beyond his hospital’s
technical capacity.
After this has been going on
for some time and expressions of concern to the hospital and authorities by one
assistant and the family of an injured patient go unheeded, the assistant
(‘whistleblower’) goes public. The popular Press gets hold of it and,
predictably it becomes front page news; and it does not go away.
Bureaucracy finally acts
(perhaps overreacts).
Several inquiries ensue and
numerous vetting and regulatory practices are changed.
Widespread culture change
becomes evident within the period of just 12 months whereby it is now natural for colleagues, patients,
families to report their suspicions about less than optimal practices and
outcomes.
HIV
Let us work
backwards. A person deliberately or even knowingly infecting a partner in many
countries today is a criminal offence leading to imprisonment. Doctors in many
countries today are now required by law to inform a partner of a HIV positive
patient of the positive status of his/her partner.
How is it that
we have reached this point when we were initially in denial about HIV AIDS,
then accepted it existed but seemed powerless against it; rather like the
rabbit caught in headlights. (I digress, but is not history repeating itself
with climate change?)
Does this fit our criteria for a Tipping Point?
Let us consider
the Australian response to the AIDS ‘epidemic’.
The following
extract is taken from Wikipedia.
The Australian health policy
response to HIV/AIDS has been characterised as emerging from the grassroots
rather than top-down, and as involving a high degree of partnership between
government and non-government stakeholders. The capacity of these groups to
respond early and effectively was instrumental in lowering infection rates
before government-funded prevention programs were operational. The response of both governments and
NGOs was also based on recognition that social action would be central to
controlling the disease epidemic.
In 1987, a famous advertising
program was launched, including television advertisements that
featured the grim reaper rolling a ten-pin bowling ball toward a group of people standing in the place of the
pins. These advertisements garnered a lot of attention: controversial when
released, and continuing to be regarded as effective as well as pioneering
television advertising.
The willingness of the Australian
government to use mainstream media to deliver a blunt message through
advertising was credited as contributing to Australia's success in managing
HIV.
Australian Governments began in the mid-1980s
to pilot or support programs involving needle exchange for intravenous drug users. These remain occasionally
controversial, but are reported to have been crucial in keeping the incidence of the disease low, as well as being extremely
cost-effective.
Australian
governments have made it illegal to discriminate against a person on the grounds
of their health status, including having HIV/AIDS. However HIV positive
individuals may still be denied immigration visas on the grounds that their
treatment takes up limited resources and is a burden for taxpayers.’
Can we now ask
if our surgery case study passes the ‘Tipping Point’ test? I think it does not.
Here I believe we have a ‘catalyst’ rather than a Tipping Point. A catalyst is
‘a person or thing that precipitates an event or a change’.
This BLOG is
about how change happens rather than about the (mis)use of the English
language.
But I have to
end it with a delicious quote from ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’:
“If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's
best", you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and
buried in an unmarked grave.”
― Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
― Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
NOW, how many of
you have gone back over this BLOG looking for the (deliberate?!) errors of
punctuation and grammar?
Peter Carter
Chief Executive Officer
ISQua
ISQua
December 2013
