United Kingdom, Problem-Solving, Problem Naming

A Hurricane on the Way

On the evening before the Great Storm of October 1987, the BBC weather forecaster Michael Fish told viewers that a woman had phoned the BBC. She had heard, he said, “there was a hurricane on the way.” He told viewers not to worry, because there was not.

In the early hours of 16 October, the storm killed 18 people, according to the Met Office, and blew down about 15 million trees. Fish later said that the caller had not existed, and that he had been referring to Hurricane Floyd, which was affecting Florida. He had not mentioned Florida in the forecast.

Arguably the Worst

In August 2008, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, told The Guardian that economic conditions were “arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years.”

The interview caused an uproar. An aide said it should “in no way be seen as an attack on Gordon,” meaning the prime minister, Gordon Brown, and Darling went on air to clarify. In February 2010, Darling told Sky News that after the interview, “the forces of hell were unleashed.” Brown denied any part in it.

Teething Problems

In early 2021, after the end of the Brexit transition period, British fishermen faced delays in exporting their catch to the European Union. On 28 January 2021, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said there were “teething problems in lots of areas,” which was “inevitable because this is a big change.”

Exporters disputed the label. Martyn Youell of Waterdance told MPs: “they’re not teething problems for us.” He called the phrase “a particularly poor choice of words.”

Crisis? What Crisis?

On 10 January 1979, during a wave of strikes, Prime Minister James Callaghan returned from a summit in Guadeloupe. At a press conference at Heathrow Airport, he was jocular and mentioned a swim in the Caribbean. A reporter asked about “the mounting chaos in the country.” Callaghan replied: “I don’t think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos.”

The next day, The Sun ran the headline “Crisis? What crisis?” Callaghan never used those exact words. His speechwriter Roger Carroll later agreed they were an effective paraphrase: “He asked for it, I’m afraid, and he got it.”

Within four months, his government had fallen to a vote of no confidence and lost the general election.

Little Local Difficulties

On 6 January 1958, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Peter Thorneycroft, resigned in a dispute over public spending. The other Treasury ministers, Enoch Powell and Nigel Birch, resigned with him. The next day, the prime minister, Harold Macmillan, left London Airport for a tour of the Commonwealth. He told the press: “I thought the best thing to do was to settle up these little local difficulties.”

The phrase is often misquoted in the singular, as “a little local difficulty.”

The Vocabulary of Early Warnings

At work, serious problems are often first mentioned in small words.

Just a heads-up : A problem is coming. One small thing : Something important has gone wrong.

A bit of a hiccup : A setback that will cause delay. Teething problems : Faults in something new, which may be serious.

We may have a slight issue : There is a problem. It’s probably nothing, but : This needs attention.

I don’t want to make a fuss, but : A real complaint follows.

The Troubles

The conflict in Northern Ireland from about 1968 to 1998 is known as the Troubles. Some 3,600 people were killed. The name had been used earlier for the violence in Ireland between 1912 and 1923.

The Irish Times has described the term as a euphemism. It noted that the word “avoided ascribing blame to any of the participants.”

Just a Scratch

In the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, released in 1975, King Arthur fights the Black Knight and cuts off his left arm. The knight replies: “‘Tis but a scratch.”

The line echoes Mercutio in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, who calls his fatal wound “a scratch, a scratch.”

Lord Uxbridge’s Leg

At the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, Lord Uxbridge, commander of the Allied cavalry, was hit in the leg by one of the last cannon shots of the day. In the popular story, he was beside the Duke of Wellington and said: “By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg!” Wellington replied: “By God, sir, so you have!”

The exchange may not have happened in these words. Horace Seymour, who helped carry Uxbridge from the field, told the politician John Wilson Croker another version, which Croker wrote in his diary in 1818: “I have got it at last,” and “No? Have you, by God?”