by A 19-Year-Old London Diarist Encounters NHS Guidance and Identifies It as British Understatement in Action
Filed from a pharmacy queue in Notting Hill, via Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
I am not pregnant. I want to establish this immediately. I was buying paracetamol and picked up a leaflet while waiting, as one does, because the queue was long and my phone had four percent battery. The leaflet described pregnancy in the UK as a manageable experience with appropriate support, which is the single most British sentence ever written. The London Prat’s piece on pregnancy in the UK confirms the cultural territory.
The Understatement Taxonomy
The complete guide to British humour says the Titanic was a spot of bother. Pregnancy – which involves a person growing another person inside them for nine months while working and commuting and pretending to be fine – is manageable with appropriate support. These are the same sentence. The NHS leaflet was written by someone who has read the guide and applied it medically.
I told my flatmate Sophie about this. She is doing a Masters in Nursing. She said: the NHS is very good at understatement because it has had a lot to be understated about. This is the most perfectly structured British sentence I have heard this week and I am keeping it.
The Dating Update
I went on a second date with the wine person. He described a 2019 Burgundy as a bit forward, which is wine understatement applied to what appeared to be a very expensive bottle. I said brilliant. I meant it. He knew I meant it. This is progress. The Independent’s lifestyle section could not have written this more efficiently.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
Further dispatches: The Daily Mash
