Welcome to the very first edition of my new blog – “Five Minutes With Frank”. This blog will sometimes be funny, sometimes serious and sometimes cynical. The blog will sometimes present well thought out arguments and sometimes will be just me ranting or raving about something I liked or disliked. Sometimes the blog will be nothing more than a Top 5 or Top 10 list and sometimes the blog might even focus on an interview I've done with someone. I may not always be politically correct and may occasionally use a curse word or two so be forewarned! However, I will always be honest and i will always try to make the five minutes you spend reading blog entertaining or at least interesting!To borrow a line from an old high school friend, all I really want to do with the blog is start good conversations. So please enjoy and please provide your feedback!!
A lot of people!?
There were a number of issues that I considered for my first blog over the past several days and ironically, the subject I am writing about did not come up until yesterday evening.
I want to talk about “…a lot of people”. Not so much individuals or even a group. Rather, I’d like to talk about the saying itself and how it is effectively used to lend false credence to different things.
As a former civil servant I can attest to the fact that the phrase “…a lot of people” get thrown around repeatedly, specifically by politicians. Several years ago, I had a Councillor tell me that he would not support us continuing with a successful event that we had hosted for a couple of years because; “…a lot of people had contacted the police to complain about the traffic issues the event was causing”. Well, as luck would have it, someone on our committee was married to a police officer and we found out that only one person had complained about the traffic during the event and it happened to be one of the Councillor’s relatives”.
I once stormed out of a committee meeting because a representative of a local organization declared during the meeting that “…a lot of people were disappointed with the layout of a publication we had worked on”. When I asked the individual what they meant by “a lot of people” they refused to get more specific. I had no problem re-visiting something if 20 people thought it was crap but if it was two people, specifically if they were part of the group that did not provide feedback when they had the opportunity to do it, then I was not going to have any of it.
One final anecdote, a few years ago a former co-worker at the Shania Twain Centre in Timmins was confronted by a guest over something he had heard from “…a lot of people”. Well, that particular co-worker could be pretty persistent and finally got the man to admit that, in this case, “a lot of people” meant two of his buddies at the coffee club.
I guess my message is that if we have a bone to pick about something then we should pick it and not hide behind vague phrases such as “a lot of people” to lend false credence or importance to our position or argument.
On that note I hope “a lot of people” will share their stories or thoughts on the use of this phrase and others like it in every day conversations!
Frank
