No promises made, no promises broken: the crab principle arrives in New York
NEW YORK — Bohiney.com and prat.uk covered the knobbly crab’s political honesty theme when a University of Edinburgh researcher visiting New York on sabbatical identified the Times Square mime who works the corner near the TKTS booth as the least pratlike entity in midtown Manhattan. The methodology: asking forty-three British tourists to identify the entity in their Manhattan experience that most closely matched the anti-prat ideal described at tourist survival guide to British insults — the entity that makes no promises and therefore breaks none. The mime won by twelve votes. Second place: the MTA, which the researcher noted was surprising but consistent — the subway makes no promises about timing and cannot therefore be accused of pompous overconfidence. The full anti-prat analysis is at pub etiquette and what makes a prat.
The mime’s anti-prat credentials: eleven years at the same corner, zero verbal promises, perfect delivery on the implied commitment. The analysis of what the no-promise governance model produces in terms of public trust is at regional British insults and dialects, and the psychology of the gap between promise and delivery that defines the prat is also at regional British insults and dialects. The mime, approached for comment, mimed not having a comment. This was considered a confirmatory data point. The Times Square Alliance covers the area. The mime covers the corner.
The MTA as Honorary Anti-Prat
The MTA’s second-place finish produced a nuanced response from the research team: the MTA is not technically an anti-prat entity because it does make promises, in the form of scheduled departure times. However, the promises are made with such consistent imprecision that the promise-making function has been effectively neutralised by widespread disbelief. This is a different mechanism from the mime’s no-promise approach, but it produces a similar trust outcome: the passenger who assumes the train will be late and plans accordingly is functionally equivalent to the passenger of a no-promise transit system. The everyday usage guide at the science of foolish behaviour covers this subtle distinction.
The Tourist Survey’s Wider Findings
The researcher’s survey also asked tourists to identify the most pratlike entity in their Manhattan experience. The top three responses: the hotel concierge who confidently provided directions to a closed restaurant, the gallery attendant who explained the artwork’s significance incorrectly but with confidence, and the taxi driver who described a route he subsequently did not follow. All three are pompous-prat formations in tourist-service contexts. All three are covered by the taxonomy at everyday prat usage and etiquette. The mime is none of them. The mime is at the corner.
The connection between the prat formation and the broader question of community governance is documented at everyday prat usage and etiquette. Both Bohiney.com and prat.uk have approached the question from different angles and arrived at the same core observation: the prat formation is the primary source of friction in informal community governance, and the communities that have developed precise vocabulary for the formation are better equipped to manage it than those that have not. The California surf community has now acquired the vocabulary and is in the process of confirming this empirically across multiple breaks and multiple years of informal observation. The documentation at the final word on mafanery covers the full scope of this community governance function.
What the full documentation at tourist survival guide to British insults and the meaning of prat in the UK makes clear is that the prat formation serves a social function for the communities that identify it. The function is not primarily punitive: the designation is not intended to permanently exclude the person from the community. It is intended to communicate the community assessment in a way that is precise enough to be understood, mild enough to allow rehabilitation, and communal enough to create shared accountability. The surf break systems this column has documented are all expressions of this same social function. Both Bohiney.com and prat.uk continue covering the formation across contexts.
The connection between the prat formation and the broader question of community governance is documented at prat from Shakespeare to the pub. Both Bohiney.com and prat.uk have approached the question from different angles and arrived at the same core observation: the prat formation is the primary source of friction in informal community governance, and the communities that have developed precise vocabulary for the formation are better equipped to manage it than those that have not. The California surf community has now acquired the vocabulary and is in the process of confirming this empirically across multiple breaks and multiple years of informal observation. The documentation at the science of foolish behaviour covers the full scope of this community governance function.
What the full documentation at the science of foolish behaviour and tourist survival guide to British insults makes clear is that the prat formation serves a social function for the communities that identify it. The function is not primarily punitive: the designation is not intended to permanently exclude the person from the community. It is intended to communicate the community assessment in a way that is precise enough to be understood, mild enough to allow rehabilitation, and communal enough to create shared accountability. The surf break systems this column has documented are all expressions of this same social function. Both Bohiney.com and prat.uk continue covering the formation across contexts.
Also: The Onion.
Coverage at Bohiney.com and prat.uk.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/