EXAGGERATION IS THE SALT of conversation. Without it, most events, news, and chit-chat would have very little flavour. Adding a pinch of exaggeration makes everything slightly more tasty. Sadly, we now know that salt is very bad for you, and it’s the same with exaggeration. Too much of it can cause heart disease, diabetes, strokes, impotence, and death.
Most of us exaggerate about ourselves, what we’ve done, and what we’re good at. In a way, we’re all sexing up our own dossiers. Actually, not everyone does this. The only people who sex up their dossiers are people who think it’s really important to have a sexed-up dossier.
Exaggeration is a lot like inflation in that it continually erodes the value and credibility of what you had in the first place. The normal process of exaggeration goes from dull but believable, through interesting and surprising, to amazing but preposterous.
Most of what you read in the newspapers is exaggeration. In fact, it’s surprising there isn’t a newspaper called The Exaggerator. The truth is that life is generally pretty mundane, but you wouldn’t want to read a paper called The Same Old Dull Stuff.
‘Understatement’ is the nemesis of exaggeration. People who disdain exaggeration often go in for understatement on a scale that amounts to inverted exaggeration. Such a person would react to their entire house being blown up by saying they were “mildly irritated”. Interestingly, this works better than saying they were “absolutely gutted” because understatement focuses attention back on the person, whereas exaggeration can’t compete with the big event itself. This explains why journalists are rubbish at natural disasters. It’s difficult to exaggerate the effect of a hurricane.
All history (well, most of it) is exaggeration. That’s because any story that gets retold tends to have its dull bits dropped and its good bits highlighted. It’s a miracle, therefore, when you get a story from ancient history that’s a bit dull. For example, King Alfred burning the cakes (Google it) isn’t something you would even have told a neighbour had you been there at the time. But miraculously, its dullness has survived generations of retelling without Alfred ever becoming the king who Discovered the Golden Cake.
On the same note, all the characters from history who are titled ‘the Magnificent’ or ‘the Great’ were probably ‘The Better Than Average’ at the time. In a thousand years’ time, children will probably be reading about Tony the Magnificent.
And finally, if you think exaggeration is something to die for and you couldn’t live without it, spend some time with police officers. They talk in a way that is resistant to legal cross-examination and is entirely without exaggeration (almost).
© GUY BROWNING IS THE AUTHOR OF ‘NEVER PUSH WHEN IT SAYS PULL’ AND CREATOR OF ‘TORTOISE IN LOVE’ (DVD) – USED BY PERMISSION.
