A pee for your thoughts

In Welsh, they know it as a senten, in Gaelic it’s a cheint, in Icelandic it’s a sent. In French, it may be called a cent, or a centime, or even a sou. In America, they call it a cent, or sometimes a penny.

In England, we call it a pee.

What’s going on here? The nation was agonisingly unhappy about giving up its shillings (we kept the pounds and – one thought – the pence). It wasn’t even a perfect duodecimal system. With 12 pence in a shilling, and 20 shillings in a pound, it was both batty and cumbersome. They still haven’t invented a calculator which can handle such a quaint counting system, and that’s exactly why we had to give it up.

The British loved their weird monetary system, and loved to show off to foreigners. You could bore them silly with smug explanations of florins, half-crowns, crowns and guineas. And that was before you got into slang like thruppeny bits and tanners.

But now, we’re all well-used to a decimal system. Our money works like everyone else’s. But, where everyone else bothers to pronounce the names of their currency, we don’t. At least, where it comes to one-hundredth of a pound, we don't. Why is it suddenly so hard to use words like penny or pence? The penny was invented in 790 AD, and we managed to call it a penny for the best of 1200 years after that. But then along came decimalisation, and we threw away a perfectly good name. Instead we use a name which sounds – and is – lazy and vulgar. And wet.

It’s probably the fault of us spivs in the advertising trade. Penny is two syllables. Pee is one. Your precious twenty-second TV or radio commercial is already overburdened by mandatory and time-consuming pointlessness like ‘your mortgage may go up or down only if it used as part of a calorie controlled diet which contains small parts and always read the label’. Then, when your client has insisted on the brand name being repeated eight times, in a carefully crafted script that only has room to say it three times, well, that’s when you start paring down the words themselves. ‘For less than a penny a day’ becomes for less than one pee a day’, which is one syllable less, and a godsend to a weak-willed agency team, when you’re still over length, studio time has run out, and the voice-over is already late for another gig on the other side of Soho.

It’s proof that advertising works. Kinda. Keep on defining hundredths of pounds as pee, and watch it fall into the language, where it inhabits the same world as legitimate words like ‘gallivanting’ or ‘jurisprudence’ or ‘perjorative’. All of those last three being delightful, roll-around-the-mouth-like-red-wine words, rich with style, dignity and sonorous texture. Oh, and syllables, too. In contrast, pee just doesn’t cut it.

Of course, brevity and clarity is often much more important than verbal felicity. How many times have I been told that? But there’s no call for ugliness in language, unless you’re German. Pee is a simply a solecism of the most stupid kind.

People don’t call cents sees. Goodness, even those Germans didn’t talk about pfees, when they had them.

We don’t have the Euro in the UK yet. It is, of course, unstoppably on its way. Across Europe, it’s pronounced airo or oiro or ooro, or something like that depending where you might be. In the UK we call it a uro, as in urological medicine. In which case, we could shorten that to wee.

And then, in our lazy, vulgar, brainless way, we can wee and pee all over proper English, no more now than a fast-shrinking dry patch in today’s sodden bed of our mother tongue.

How to tell when it really isn't good news

Easy. Simply count the number of times when they tell you it’s good news.

A classically-trained copywriter – and there are some still left, believe me – knows that three is a compelling number. Telling someone they’ll get ‘everything from green to blue’ is OK. But telling them they’ll get everything from ‘green, through red, to blue’ is much better.  Telling them ‘dishes sparkle, plates shine’ makes it sound like an OK dishwasher. Promising them that ‘dishes sparkle, plates shine and cutlery gleams’ is a much bigger, more exciting promise. Three has been the balance-tipping number, the number of certainty, since at least the night of the Last Supper.

Maybe the classically-trained copywriters, most of them now moved on from the shallow pools of commerce, have taken their talents to the murky puddles of political speech-writing. Because you can hear the smithing of their kind of words on the dead anvils of falsehood, on a daily basis.

The more inexplicable the politician’s decision, the more it is touted as good news. The decision to bomb middle eastern tribesmen into extinction will almost certainly  be described as ‘good news for freedom and democracy’.

A decision to pay a scrappage allowance on old cars will be announced as ‘good news for the car industry, and good news for the recycling industry’. It is, of course, terrible news for the environment, and anyone who’s just paid full price for a new car. But two good news counts makes the news good and right.

An increase in prescription charges could well be identified as ‘good news for pharmacists, good news for the health service, and good news for patients.’  Anyone who has trouble working out why more expensive medication is good news for ill people should stop and think. The government says so, so it must be true, silly. The government said it three times, so it must be unassailably true, good and right.

But good news has a way of speaking for itself. The classically trained copywriter knows that ‘Free!’ is the most powerful word in advertising. No need to add ‘This is really good news’.

‘New!’ is the second most powerful word in advertising, and adding ‘Good!’ doesn’t make it any better or stronger.

You’re right. We should smell a rat, any time anyone rushes up with news they describe as ‘good'. The word ‘good’ in such a context nearly always means ‘bad’.

‘It’s good for the taxpayer, it’s good for business, and it’s good for the country.’ Of course it isn’t. If it was that good, it’d be self-evidently good. Protesting too much is a dead giveaway.

‘This is good news for children, good news for parents, and good news for the food labelling industry’ simply means ‘we’re spending huge amounts of taxpayers’ money on an exercise nobody can actually justify or understand.’

As I write this, I am congratulated by coincidence. Today, Cadbury, one of Britain’s last, best and most dignified names, has just been acquired, against its will, by the lumpen greedy American coagulate (and I mean that) Kraft. And the evening radio news has just this moment reported that our Minister for Trade and Industry, or something like that, Lord Mandelson, has described this terrible loss of one of the last jewels in the crown, this kicking-and-screaming kidnap-for-cash as ‘good news for British manufacturing.’

Good news? Go figure.

The Last Bank of Scotland

Honourable Sir,

My name is Colonel Lord Jim Smithington-Smithington, GCSE, and I am the trusted deceased assistant to the Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland. I have a large amount of money which was greatly accumulated before, during and after the world banking collapse. The money was collected from taxpayers, and entrusted to my unfortunate predecessor Sir Frederick Goodwin, who has now tragically disappeared. Although when he vanished he took as much money as he could carry, he had to leave very large proportions behind him. This money, and lots more like it, is too much to be shared among my shareholders. My bank has already given a great deal of it to its employees and directors. I now need to place the remaining balance somewhere most safely secure where customers and businesses cannot get hold of it. I know you will think this is indubitably improper, but I can most rightfully assure you that my government says this is all perfectly legal and honest and most beneficial to all.

I now need your help in transferring the sum of £96,000,000,000,000,000.40 to a trusted individual, who will honourably guard the money until I can collect it after I have been fired for negligent conduct. I am writing to you because you are most honourable and decent proper person who can be trusted with such sums. In return you will be entitled to keep the 40p.

I am sure you will be thinking that this is a disgraceful and dishonest scam of the most untrustable kind, in which you provide us innocently with your banking information details, in order that we may then corruptly remove outrageous amounts of money from your bank account without your granting nicely permission or knowledge. It is not at all that kind of scam. At your Royal Highness the Bank of Scotland we already have your banking information, and have been taking the money from you on this basis for many years. That is where these large amounts are now coming from.

So I am sure you can see this is all very well indeed, and if you are interested please send me your useful details. The special sensitivity nature of this affair requires that you must be of more than 18 years old, unless you are a shareholder in or customer of the Last Bank of Scotland, which means we believe you must have been born yesterday but that is OK with us.

I am look forward to hearing from you,

Jim.