Ever noticed all those stupid warnings out there? Well, here's an English paper I wrote on the subject.....
Everyday, we come in contact with warnings. They are all over virtually anything we buy, and they are everywhere on TV and in other media. Many of these warnings are useful and serve their intended purposes. But every once in a while, we come across a warning which makes us wonder: how stupid does the media think we are?
The object that first brought this issue to my attention was a mug which I purchased from Newbury Comics [which, for those of you who don't know, is a very cool store]. At first, it just appeared to be your standard, plastic, heat-safe mug with the Newbury Comics logo emblazoned on the side. But upon further inspection, I saw one of the infamous warnings on its lid. It said, and I quote, "CAUTION: Contents May Be Hot." Besides the fact that several letters in it are unnecessarily capitalized, I believe this warning to be a statement of the extremely obvious. I would hope that any person intelligent enough to pour hot coffee (or tea, or cocoa, or wonton soup--it really doesn't matter) into a mug would also be intelligent enough to realize that this liquid would still be hot when poured into the mug. Somehow, it doesn't seem like a hard concept to grasp, and yet the makers of this fine mug felt it necessary to put the warning on it.
As you have probably observed, many aerosol and spray cans also display warnings. These usually include some clever saying such as "avoid spraying in eyes." This is not only grammatically incorrect, but stupid too. I don't know anybody in their right mind who would pick up a can of Static Guard, for instance,and say, "Hmmm...let me see what happens if I spray this Static Guard into my eyes. It seems like an exciting and worthwhile activity." People who are incompetent enough to think this should not be using Static Guard at all.
There are also the generic warnings on all high-quality plastic bags--"This bag is not a toy." I don't think you'll need help grasping the idiocy of this one, but I would like to make one point: I cannot imagine any sane parent giving his or her child a plastic bag and saying, "Here, honey. Come and play with this plastic bag. It'll be so much fun! Oh, wait...it says that it isn't a toy. I guess you'll have to play with these candy bar wrapppers instead."
And, of course, there are always the witty and intelligent warnings on television commercials. For instance, a commercial which tells us, "This Super-de-Duper-Deluxe Batman cape is for recreational purposes only; it will not actually give the wearer the ability to fly" would not be much of an insight to most people. And while this realization may be a tragic turning-point in the life of one Batman hopeful somewhere in North Dakota, it is not worth the effort of insult to an average person's intelligence to actually put the commercial on the air.
This has been only a very small sampling of all the stupid warnings in the world; no one person could write them all down in one lifetime. But I think that my point has been expressed well enough: the media thinks we are stupid. So some day, when you are told to your great dismay that Barbie dolls do not move by themselves in real life, or that it is hazardous and possibly fatal to take the tag off a mattress, just walk away in protest. Go read a book, work in your garden, or, if you feel so inclined, you could see what happens when you spray your new Static Guard into your eyes.
Now you can go back to my home page for still more fun and excitement.
