The term, “flatscreen TV”, continues to be used in 2023. I sometimes wonder why. Seems to denote value, luxury, modernity. “Police seized 15 stolen flatscreen television sets”; “The room features a mini-bar and flatscreen TV”.
It’s actually been impossible to buy a new TV which isn’t flat for at least 15 years, making the “flatscreen” preface useless. Yet it persists.
There’s a name for this; “redundancy”.
Other examples include “each and every”, “balsa wood” or “cease and desist”.
Like bad handwriting, these are perpetrated more often by first language users, because they rely so much on muscle memory and instinct, bypassing communicational need and logic.
Semantic-redundancy is surely there, too, in “nice cup of tea”. Adding the “nice” is just a meaningless habit. Or is it?
Both of my daughters have latched onto the whole phrase when going through their tea-party phase (no, Sarah Palin wasn’t involved). Without ever wanting to drink the drink (disgusting), they have both loved setting out the pieces on the carpet, inviting (forcing) adults to come and have a nice cup of tea.
The “nice” term recently featured in a CNN article about the UK coronation, quoting Orwell’s belief that the country is all about, “the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the nice cup of tea”. Yes, not about a king.
Patriotism untethered from pompous personalities and complacent cliques suits me fine. Patriotism founded on scenery, ideas and habits is my kind of patriotism. But I’m still not entirely comfortable with this “nice cup”.
Sometimes I worry that it is trying a bit too hard. The “nice” feels like a flaccid attempt to big up a boring, disappointing formality. That’s the innocent side of “nice”.
And sometimes I hear this “nice cup“ as a threat, as a warning not to make tea in the wrong way. Well, that’s a minefield, because there is no true consensus here, no recipe stored in the British Library.
Despite the consistent use of poor tea ingredients across the UK, debate rages on, say, the best moment for adding milk; just one of the prickly parameters.
“A nice cup of tea” is not a shibboleth sifting the British from the non British; it is a shibboleth sifting “British people like me” from “strange British people who I dislike”. Exactly the opposite of “my cup”, this “nice cup” is a subjective term of (class) judgment disguised as an objective one. Sadly, we are all more prejudiced, or maybe just more eccentric, than Orwell wants us to be.
And the phrase is in the wrong order, isn’t it? “A nice cup of tea” actively precludes “a cup of nice tea”. David Lynch’s insistence on “damn good coffee” makes more sense to me.
Orwell thinks he is celebrating the affordability and democracy of tea, but “nicing” the cup leads to praising the chintz, ignoring the leaves.
I often worry about my last days in a UK nursing home, either tragically bereaved or rightfully abandoned. Even with a full command of English, I’ll not be able to make my preference understood; The “nice cup of tea” I receive will not be a Chinese rock oolong suited to season and mood; it will be opaque brown; something made from a bag; something I don’t find nice.
If I can’t find a solution to this conundrum soon, then I’ll have to fast-track the flow-chart to the crematorium.
And, by the way, nor will I suffer flatscreens in my dotage. Cathode Ray. That’s my cup of television.
