The Playbook Archives - understand-culture

The Whitney Legend

In 1798 Eli Whitney signed a contract to deliver “ten thousand stands of arms by September 30, 1800.” In January 1801 he showed his muskets to President John Adams and President-elect Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson wrote that Whitney “has invented moulds and machines for making all the pieces of his locks so exactly equal.”

Whitney finished the contract in January 1809. The historian Merritt Roe Smith concluded that “Whitney must have staged his famous 1801 demonstration with specimens specially prepared for the occasion.” The parts of surviving Whitney muskets “were not even approximately interchangeable.”

Interchangeable parts were achieved later by others, among them Simeon North and John Hall. The method became known as the “American system of manufacturing.”

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

American English has many phrases for using a solution that already exists.

reinvent the wheel — “to recreate something that already exists, especially at the expense of unnecessary time and effort.” The earliest known use is from 1956, in an American book on documentation, where a scientist wanted “to avoid re-inventing the wheel.”

rinse and repeat — do the same steps again.

turnkey — ready to use as delivered.

plug and play — working as soon as it is connected.

cookie-cutter — made from one template. The word is used as criticism.

Uniform Laws

Since 1892 the Uniform Law Commission has written model laws for the states. It has produced “more than 450 uniform acts.” Its aim is “to promote uniformity in state law when uniformity is desirable and practicable.” “No uniform law is effective until a state legislature adopts it.”

The best known is the Uniform Commercial Code, written with the American Law Institute. It took ten years to draft. “After another 14 years, it had been enacted in every state.” A business that sells goods in Ohio and in Oregon works under the same basic rules in both.

Robert’s Rules of Order

In 1863 Henry Martyn Robert chaired a public meeting at First Baptist Church in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It “collapsed into chaos.” As he moved around the country, he met “virtual parliamentary anarchy.”

In February 1876 he published a book to “bring order out of chaos.” Robert’s Rules of Order is now in its twelfth edition, published in 2020.

Fifteen Beats

In 2005 the screenwriter Blake Snyder published Save the Cat! His “beat sheet” lists “the 15 essential ‘beats’ or plot points that all stories should contain.”

In 2013 the critic Peter Suderman wrote in Slate: “In practice, Snyder’s beat sheet has taken over Hollywood screenwriting.” He added: “Movies big and small stick closely to his beats and page counts.” Among his examples were Star Trek Into Darkness, Fast & Furious 6 and Monsters University. In 2018 the template was adapted for novelists in Save the Cat! Writes a Novel.

Hamburger University

In 1958 Fred Turner wrote McDonald’s first operations manual. It set rules such as the maximum thickness of the fries and six patties on the grill at a time. A 2011 textbook said Turner “attempted to turn the task of running a restaurant from an art to a science.”

“In 1961, Hamburger University began in a McDonald’s restaurant basement in Elk Grove Village, Ill.” The first class had 15 graduates. Its aim is to “establish consistent restaurant standards around the globe.”

The Best Surprise Is No Surprise

On a family trip in 1951, Kemmons Wilson found motel rooms “overpriced and uncomfortable.” On August 1, 1952, he opened the first Holiday Inn in Memphis. It had a pool, air conditioning, a restaurant, a telephone and television in the rooms, free ice and free parking. Children stayed free.

The first franchise followed in 1954. “Comprehensive operational standards produced uniformity in nearly every detail.” Within ten years there were about 500 Holiday Inns. Later the company’s advertising slogan was “The Best Surprise Is No Surprise.”

For Dummies

DOS for Dummies appeared in November 1991. “Most bookstore chains did not want to stock it.” The first printing sold out in about a week. Its author, Dan Gookin, gives the first print run as 5,000 copies, and a company history gives 7,500.

The publisher kept the format, with its yellow and black cover, its icons and its humor, and applied it to other subjects. Personal Finance for Dummies, in 1994, was the first title outside technology. By the end of 1997 there were 355 titles, on subjects such as golf, red wine, Shakespeare, pregnancy and auto repair.

Twenty-Six Steps

On July 1, 1947, Levitt & Sons broke ground for Levittown on Long Island. “The building of every house was reduced to 26 steps, and sub-contractors were responsible for each step.” By July 1948 the firm was building 30 houses a day. The development grew to about 17,500 homes. William Levitt said: “The land was our factory.”

Then the template moved. Levittown, Pennsylvania, received its first residents in 1952. Willingboro, New Jersey, was built as a Levittown in 1958.

AMBER Alert

AMBER Alert “began in 1996 when Dallas-Fort Worth broadcasters teamed with local police.” It is named for Amber Hagerman, 9, who was abducted while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas. The name also stands for “America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response.”

Police agencies across the country asked the Arlington Police Department for guidance on building their own plans. Oklahoma started the first statewide plan in 1999, and Florida followed in 2000. By 2006 “There are a total of 116 AMBER Alert plans across the U.S.”