Writing Right with Dmitri: How to be a Ferguson
Created | Updated Feb 12, 2012
Words, words, words. That's what we're made of. Herewith some of my thoughts on what we're doing with them.
Writing Right with Dmitri: How to Be a Ferguson
The theme, folks, is 'local interest'. Now, contrary to what some of my readers believe, 'local' does not mean 'somewhere within 200 miles of London'. 'Local' means wherever you are. Some of us (gasp) do not even live on islands. In fact, some of us hear other languages than English when we go out of doors (which we remember to do at least once a week, if only for the novelty of the thing). Each of us is somewhere. We're all 'there' – even if we aren't all there, like the present writer, or even if there's 'no there there', as Gertrude Stein said about Oakland, California.
Like it or not, you're also potentially someone's best informant on the locality that surrounds you. You are a Ferguson in spe.
What Is a Ferguson When He's at Home?
The wonderful Mr Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, coined the useful term 'Ferguson'. A Ferguson is a local expert, possibly mendacious, often lacking in language skills, who offers his services to the casual tourist. In his brilliant travel book The Innocents Abroad, Twain skewers tourists and tour guides alike, to our everlasting amusement. I heartily recommend this tome as a primer on how to describe your local area.
Where did the name Ferguson come from? Oh, yes, glad you asked. (I was about to forget.) In Paris, Twain and his yahoo travel companions ran across a tour guide named Billfinger. The name bothered them. True, the tour guide was a Parisian. But what kind of name was Billfinger? It didn't have a ring to it. So they called him Ferguson. He didn't seem to mind (tourists are always strange, ask any tour guide), so Twain and his jolly jokesters proceeded to use the name Ferguson for every guide they hired on their Mediterranean tour. There was the Ferguson in Genoa who had to put up with their witticisms about Columbus, the Arab Ferguson who owned so many tents, etc. You get the idea.
A Ferguson obviously needs patience. It also helps if he can figure out what the punters are looking for.
In the Absence of Fergusons, the Tourists Run Amok
You don't believe me? See what Twain's friend Blucher got up to1 when left to his own devices:
'At every hotel we stop at we always have to send out for soap, at the last moment, when we are grooming ourselves for dinner, and they put it in the bill along with the candles and other nonsense. In Marseilles they make half the fancy toilet soap we consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they have obtained from books of travel, just as they have acquired an uncertain notion of clean shirts, and the peculiarities of the gorilla, and other curious matters. This reminds me of poor Blucher's note to the landlord in Paris:
PARIS, le 7 Juillet. Monsieur le Landlord – Sir: Pourquoi don't you mettez some savon in your bed-chambers? Est-ce que vous pensez I will steal it? La nuit passee you charged me pour deux chandelles when I only had one; hier vous avez charged me avec glace when I had none at all; tout les jours you are coming some fresh game or other on me, mais vous ne pouvez pas play this savon dodge on me twice. Savon is a necessary de la vie to any body but a Frenchman, et je l'aurai hors de cet hotel or make trouble. You hear me. Allons. BLUCHER. – The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
See? Ferguson needed here.
Dispelling Ignorance
It is no use doing as some h2g2ers do, and pretending that everybody's supposed to know what you're talking about. If they already know what you're talking about, they don't need you to tell them, now, do they? The fun is in sharing a new insight, a tidbit2, a piece of fun information somebody else hasn't stumbled upon yet. At the very least, you can cast light into the Stygian darkness of their abysmal ignorance.
Take this example:
"Hello, doctor, what are you doing up here at this time of night? What do you want to see this place for?"
"What do I want to see this place for? Young man, little do you know me, or you wouldn't ask such a question. I wish to see all the places that's mentioned in the Bible."
"Stuff – this place isn't mentioned in the Bible."
"It ain't mentioned in the Bible! – this place ain't – well now, what place is this, since you know so much about it?"
"Why it's Scylla and Charybdis."
"Scylla and Ch– confound it, I thought it was Sodom and Gomorrah!" – The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
Sodom and Gomorrah. These tourists were doing the Mediterranean and the 'Holy Land', armed with Bibles instead of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 'Nuff said.
How to Research
Want to describe your locality? Get up. Turn off the computer. (It will still be there when you get back. Promise.) Go for a walk. Think: If I were from Mars/the opposite side of the planet, what wouldn't I know about this place? Then tell about it, in as interesting a fashion as possible.
Hitchhikers everywhere will be grateful. You might save them from the Bugblatter Beast of Traal. You might even save them from themselves:
I am reminded, now, of one of these complaints of the cookery made by a passenger. ...The coffee had been steadily growing more and more execrable for the space of three weeks...
He flourished back and got his cup and set it down triumphantly, and said:
"Just try that mixture once, Captain Duncan."
He smelt it – tasted it – smiled benignantly – then said:
"It is inferior – for coffee – but it is pretty fair tea."
The humbled mutineer smelt it, tasted it, and returned to his seat. He had made an egregious ass of himself before the whole ship. He did it no more. After that he took things as they came. That was me. – The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
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