Assumptions

Wezly Barnard

“Assumptions are things you don’t know you are making.” Douglas Adams, in his book Last Chance to see illustrates how making assumptions can be very disorientating. In the chapter Blind Panic, Adams uses a humorous technique to describe how certain things work differently in other countries, “the first time you take the plug out of a wash basin in Australia and see the water sprawling down the hole the other way round.” People who witness this for the first time would probably find it strange as it is something they are not used to. When a person sees something that is out of the norm, it tends to give a feeling that they are out of their comfort zone. “The very laws of physics are telling you how far you are from home.” Another example that Adams uses is how “in New Zealand even the telephone dials are numbered anticlockwise.” This will make it very difficult for people who are not from New Zealand to make a phone call. People are used to doing things in a way they are familiar with and almost feel lost when the same thing is done in a different way. “The shock is that it had never occurred to you that there was any other way of doing it.” It may even become humorous as it could feel like it’s the first time they are doing it even though in the past they have made many phone calls.“This has nothing to do with the law of physics – they just do it differently” It is interesting that the very same situation is done in a different way all over the world and things are not the way you expect it to be. “The ground slips” is a humorous way of describing being disorientated. Adams uses these words to create a feeling of being off balance. This is finding it difficult to stand which relates to how a person might feel when facing something different. “Try and do it quickly and you will inevitably misdial because your automatic habit jumps in and takes over before you have a chance to stop it.” The trip to China is going to be very different for Adams as all these assumptions will develop. In China most of what they do is different to what Adams is used to. “I had a kind of inkling that this would be the case from what little I knew of other people’s experiences in China.” Adams, through his words, gives the reader a feeling of what it might be like in a different country and what experiences a person could encounter.