You know me. I love a good survey. Too bad there aren’t many around, so once again I’ll have to consider a bad one, and once again I find myself in debt to the Daily Express, the thinking man’s National Enquirer.
This particular survey was carried out on behalf of Ronseal. They produce wood preservative products, and this side of the Pond at least are widely and rightfully respected for a phrase that has entered the lexicon. ‘It does what it says on the tin’ is now common parlance, and I for one welcome this newcomer. No jumped up arriviste, it’s a very expressive term for no nonsense straightforwardness, a much better construction then WYSIWYG.
Six out of ten men do not read the instructions before using a new product. Let’s think about this. The survey is for Ronseal, and their products are really glorified paint. Blokes know what to do with paint. If it’s not non-drip (or thixotropic as we scientists call it,) you stir it, and brush it on. It is not, as they say, bloody rocket science, now is it?
A ‘massive’ 30% of men will not read instructions that are too lengthy. I’m dubious about that figure. Yes, you buy an iPad or some other piece of gadgetry the size of a deck of cards, and the instruction manual is the size of a Stephen King novel, you may not read it all the way through. You find out by trial and error how to make it do what you need, and ignore the other 99% of its capabilities as superfluous, a bit like Microsoft Office. Another, or perhaps the same 30% don’t read instructions with no pictures. Apparently DIYers are troglodytes, or at least you could conclude that. My conclusion is, ‘For goodness sake! I stick a brush in and slap it on. It’s only a shed! Who cares?’ Maybe it’s just me. Really, all I need to know is whether I have to clean the brush with water or with white spirit. Actually I don’t need to know that either. Chuck it away when the job’s done, and buy new. You know it makes sense.
Now we get a bit metaphysical. Allegedly, 61% of men feel ‘unmanly’ if they’re lost have to ask for directions. That’s a pleasingly accurate figure, is it not? Sixty one percent. Not 60, or 65, which look as if you’ve massaged the figures; 61%.
‘Feeling unmanly’ seems to me to be a rather extreme reaction. Also it’s not clear to me if that’s a subset of the remarkably precise 60% who don’t read instructions. But the only reason men will not ask for directions is because they don’t want to end up on a murder rap for killing a complete stranger, and they are murderously inclined because their girlfriend or wife (or both, depending on how freewheeling the relationship is) cannot read a map if you’re going south without turning the bloody thing upside down. Women do not have the faintest idea how infuriating that is to men.
Now a true revelation. Men lie about DIY; 72% (pleasingly precise again) have paid a professional to do a job, and then claimed they did it themselves. Boohoo! Liar liar pants on fire!
A spokeswoman meandered on about how the urban myth of men ignoring instructions ‘…is now fact.’ No, it’s not. We know this survey is badly flawed because over 70% of the panel are pathological liars, and those are just the ones who owned up. That level of fibbing must skew your results a bit, surely?
PS Remind me at some time to explain the difference, in scientific terms, between ‘precise’ and ‘accurate.’
Boo reading the instructions spoils the whole experience of learning, My Camera manual is very thick but I just keep it as reference and so only used it once. I learn much faster when it is fun rather then an encyclopedic hum drum affair following page after page. Hey and my photos are not too bad for not following dem instructions 🙂
Ever read the driver’s manual for a car? I’ll bet not unless you couldn’t find out how to switch off the rear screenwiper
Nope never have, the only time I might of was when I test drove an American car. Pulled up to fill it up with gas but darned if I could find where to insert the nozzle,had to go in and ask. Fancy putting it under the license plate 😀 oh well live and learn 🙂
You need to watch some more road movies…
Sadistic statistics. Adds to the blight of the grey rainy day, in a good way.
I love it when you get an instruction manual and only about three pages are in a language you understand and the rest of the tome that weighs more than the product you’ve bought is in forty-seven other languages. Is it really easier and cheaper to print that then to figure out your market and only publish the three pages in one language?
Cheers.
Strange to relate I know he answer to this question, and it’s ‘Yes.’ I know this from the medical devices market. Splitting a print run will always be an expensive little exercise, and it works out cheaper to print everything all in one go.
|I love it when the instructions have apparently been translated from Lithuanian by somebody whose first language is Urdu. Utter gibberish.
Playing with the translator program is fun.
Go from English to any other language, and a few more languages and then back to English…it’s like playing ‘Telephone’ or ‘Whisper down the land’ you’ll never get to the original from where you started.
Back in medieval times we used to use professional translators.
Take ‘Advanced dietary management’ into Norwegian and back again into English, we eneded up with ‘Forward eating boardroom.’ Not quite what we needed …
Attempting to translate an Italian document and I’m having all sorts of fun.
Did you know (would you want to know) what a
gonfalon and a gonfalonier; gonfaloniere (the Italian word) is/are?
🙂
It’s a heraldic flag, isn’t it? Like they use in Sienna? What the heck are you translating?
One of my family names. When I was in Italy a few years back I was at some kind of fair and the booth was – you put your family name in and out comes its history. In Italian… Apparently some time in the 14th century my mothers family must have been caretakers of the flag… Well something like that. And were subsequently for some unknown reason awarded or knighted into or with the ‘Golden Spur’. And if you believe that…I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you. Interesting even if a bit wonky.
I could point out that an American bought London Bridge abck in the 1970s when they rebuilt it.
He thought, not being on site, he was buying Tower Bridge.
So London Bridge now can be found on Lake Havasu.
Now had you said Verrazzano Narrows… I’d have that. I’ve been to the place where the dedication stone came from.
🙂
Instructions are just guidelines anyway…
I may take issue with this at some point. But not now.
Arf!
I think I just dodged a bullet!
😀
A long time ago I studied statistics for a business studies course at college and I have had a healthy scepticism of survey results ever since. I agree with all your points of disagreement with the Daily Express report. “Thinking man’s National Enquirer” 😆
Here’s my view
http://wp.me/p2C8Zz-b9