Somewhere there is a human who, as part of their job, once wrote out the following sentence: “A VARIED AND BALANCED DIET AND A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE ARE IMPORTANT”. Remembering this is not the work of a machine is important, at first my brain casually imagined it might have been. The truth is, a thinking, breathing, living, person is behind that unhelpful statement on the back of a packet of Wrigley’s gum.

Best case scenario they were a freelance copywriter doing a bit of contract work and had a word limit they needed to be as close to as possible. In this world the words become “filler” material and were only reprinted on an industrial scale because of a quirky clerical requirement. It’s still an irritating waste of resources but it seems less awful than the possibility anyone invested real thought into the process.

Ironically the more consideration that has gone into these words the worse the situation is. The sentences surrounding it are pretty functional. The one highlighted in bold is presumably useful in a legal sense: “CONTAINS A SOURCE OF PHENYLALANINE, EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION MAY PRODUCE LAXATIVE EFFECTS”. In other words, if you eat too many packets of gum, you might shit yourself.

It is immediately after this sober warning about the effect of “PHENYLANINE” upon a human bowel system that the problems begin. Maybe it was because the image this evokes is so pathetic and the solitary author was subsequently horrified. It’s difficult not to be if you think of someone who requires this advice, overcome by their desire for mint flavour chewing gum, eating three or four packets of the stuff and then being forced to sit on a toilet howling their guts out. Certainly anyone who is so imprisoned by their desire for minty gum deserves our initial sympathy.

This train of thought might explain the copywriter’s subsequent need to essentially provide instructions on how to use the gum: “CHEW FOR AT LEAST 20 MINUTES AFTER EATING AND DRINKING”. At this point I imagine the writer in a darkened room with a crusty lap top, sitting back and rubbing their chin, with a face that at first looks content. “Good,” they may have thought initially, “that will also help a few people out”.

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What’s important is the effect such a sentence has upon the mind of a human. Words change your consciousness. Try to imagine the psychology of a someone who is required to write such a sentence. They live in a world where there are people who need such instructions. The author was a marketing person probably. I believe the writing on the packet exists so Wrigleys can try to sell chewing gum as a form of dental hygiene. However, what they are also selling, to both themselves as well as us, on a subconscious level at least, is the idea we inhabit a world of fools.

Perhaps they fell victim to this line of thought and this is why they then went on to to think:

“F–k!, I’d better give these idiots some more of my advice, they’ll be f–ked without my help, they can’t even use chewing gum for God’s sake, what’s the world coming to?”.

That might explain why they then found themselves writing out the plain obvious:

“A VARIED AND BALANCED DIET AND A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE ARE IMPORTANT”.

Imagine them, in this scenario, what did their face look like as they composed such an inane combination of words? Do they look worried to you? Smug? Scared? If anything I’m anxious to empathise here. How they managed not to descend any further we will never know. Perhaps these sentences were the last thing they ever wrote or maybe their work was edited down and did originally include other homilies such as:

“BE NICE TO EACH OTHER”

“LOVE YOUR FAMILY”

“ALWAYS CARRY A CLEAN TISSUE IN YOUR POCKET”

“DO THE RIGHT THING IN LIFE INSTEAD OF THE WRONG THING”

“HELP ME, I’M ALONE AND FRIGHTENED IN A WORLD I DON’T UNDERSTAND”

That’s one scenario but the other more, likely one, is far worse. There’s a fear in my mind that this is the work of more than one person. In other words, this sentence is an expression of collective thought, rather than a solitary individual nearing the point of mental exhasution or two people with one in the role of copy editor.

In that nightmare possibility there will have been a meeting somewhere attended by pricks who likely get paid more than you do. Their job is to talk shit about things they do not understand. They strut about with an unearned swagger, calling themselves things like “Project Manager”, “Team Leader” or “Group Facilitator”. They care little for the worlds of either grammar or ethics. They add extra “AND” words to sentences for no good reason. They dole out useless, unwanted advice, to others in an attempt to elevate themselves above the ‘little people’ they find around them. They think you and everyone else in this world is stupid. Furthermore they pretend to believe there’s something “good” about lecturing us in common sense.

No one thinks “A VARIED AND BALANCED DIET” is a bad thing. No one thinks “A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE” is not good. Furthermore, if people do exist who think “UNHEALTHY” might be better or an “EXCESSIVE AND UNBALANCED DIET” is the way forward, they’re beyond the reach of ‘wise words’ written on packets of chewing gum. The ONLY real purpose of these words is to put you in your place. They create a relationship between you and the chewing gum where it knows best and you’d better do as it says. It can only do that if you agree that such a sentence was the correct thing to write upon the back of this packet.

In other words, if you’re one of the people who read this article and think to yourself, “meh, what’s wrong with putting that on a packet of chewing gum?” they’ve got you already and you’re currently beyond our reach. You’ve become alike to a nodding dog, hypnotised by the rhythm of the road and conditioned to think having the obvious stated to you is good in and of itself. Like saying a prayer, reading non-specific, and therefore obvious, health advice is simple good for its own sake.

Snap out of that trance! “MAY CONTAIN NUTS” on a packet of peanuts is advice for fools and it envisages a society fit only for them. It pulls us all down into the mire of idiocy. Treat people as children and sooner or later they start acting as children. Machines care not for people, they do as well tell them to. Lets programme them not to patronise but respect us.

“A machine evolves by becoming more efficient, that is, more foolproof; hence the objective of mechanical progress is a foolproof world–-which may or may not mean a world inhabited by fools.” - George Orwell, The Road To Wigan Pier

The cultural machine which produced this sentence about chewing gum would like a world inhabited by fools. They are easier to sell product to. It’s a reality where human-fools become product and are almost indistinguishable from the objects which are sold to them, resist such nonsense.

Particularly if it is your job to write sentences like that one.