One time I couldn’t help but think of this rule came when I watched Bono’s acceptance speech for winning Glamour magazine's 'Woman of the Year' award. Quoting his daughter, Jordan, U2’s frontman remarks that ‘there is no place in the world right now where a woman has the same opportunity as a man’.
As I look over the quote now, I see it as a bit of a stretch to link it directly to King's rule. But I think it shares a similar spirit. What Bono quotes his daughter saying is clear and concise. The image is a dash of cold water for those contented with 'progress' and the vocabulary does not leave room for misunderstanding.
Sometimes, I forget the value of such a description until I am reminded by an opposite example. One crisp November morning (just a year or so after Bono fell through the glass ceiling, I suppose, and opened my mind to the possibility that I, too, could someday become 'Woman of the Year') I sent this out-of-context quote to a couple of friends:
But the global trend now seems to have made a U-turn, especially in workplaces, where full gender equality is not expected to materialize until 2234.By the end of the day, I’d received two responses (2):
#1: What’s the point?
#2: Extrapolating…
I was a little surprised at first by these responses. Surely, the quote was worth a little more than those replies. But as I looked more at it, I started to see it differently. The quote was a lot like what Bono said, pretty much the same thing in some ways, but in terms of its impact, it fell far short of what I heard a year ago.
I don't know what Stephen King's response to my quote would have been - but I'm sure I could guess.
Footnotes / if it's nice out, I'd say stop reading now and go outside
1. Ah, if only I were...a writer!
I'm sure it's a great rule for writing. I might even give it a try sometime.
I'll let you know how it goes, reader.
2. It's hard to decide which response was better...
I suppose #1 kind of assumes an understanding of #2, which I might need to think about were I committed to ranking these. But I'm not, and I won't. I'm going outside.
