Yaicha

OK, I’m going to expose my English-major roots here, not to mention my first career as an English teacher. I am tired of hearing and seeing “a perfect storm” used to describe a rare confluence of factors that produces a negative result. It was a pretty cool phrase when the usage began, inspired by the powerful book and movie, The Perfect Storm. It was a concise and visual way to make a point about, essentially, really bad luck causing a really bad result.

But is *everything* negative that results from multiple factors really worthy of the label, “a perfect storm”? I think not. Instead, it’s a lazy way to explain complicated causal relationships. We don’t have to actually provide any explanation of cause and effect, let alone get bogged down in tedious details to justify a sweeping conclusion. Just call it “a perfect storm” and people will nod in recognition, visualize that monster wave that doomed the fishing boat in the movie, and blithely accept the statement: “Oh, ‘a perfect storm,’ of course — nothing anyone could have done about that!”

Bull. Calling something “a perfect storm” side-steps close examination of culpability. After all, the weather is no one’s fault and a terrible weather event can’t be attributed to any person or group. Poof! Accountability vanishes, drowned like the ship along with careful examination.

I’m sure my little voice won’t “turn the tide” on this, but I hope that soon we’ll reach “the tipping point” (by my reckoning, the previous catchy-I-don’t-want-to-have-to-actually-explain-my-logic phrase) and the lazy use of “a perfect storm” will fade in popularity. Most likely, however, it will only depart when replaced by another, similarly simplistic way of summing complex things up.

OK, if you got this far, thanks for reading and tolerating my English major rant