Starter for Ten – 25/07/19

Starter for Ten is a daily writing exercise where the aim is simply to write for a full 10 minutes. No editing or revision is allowed after the 10 minutes is up. The aim is to try new things, experiment with voices and styles and be bold. Suckage often occurs.

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When they built the railroads in Australia they didn’t account for the fact that the country was federalised. In part due to the massive size of the country each state functioned almost independently of the others. Consequently, no one had bothered to ask what gauge track each state was using and, naturally, they all chose differently. After the tracks were laid it was too expensive to standardise and so trains would cross a state and then at the border they would have to be lifted by a crane and placed on the rails of the next state’s tracks. It could then continue until it hit the next border.

When JFK stood and delivered his rousing anti-communism speech in West Berlin, one of the most well-remembered lines is when he pronounced “Ich bin ein berliner”. The reason it’s well-remembered is that it was a mistake and rather than allying himself with his host city, by leaving the “ein” in Kennedy was actually declaring that he was “a Berliner” which was colloquially taken to mean a donut. The miscommunication though wasn’t Kennedy’s but history’s. It’s perfectly acceptable to use such a phrase and was understood in the manner which Kennedy meant it – the audience even cheered the comment, both times that Kennedy said it. Now though the berliner/donut lie has perpetuated to the extent that it’s taken as truth.

If fake news is destined to be the dividing line of our times then we must own our miscommunications.