Onze Taal. Jaargang 36

Van Sinterklaas

Het schrijven van gebruiksaanwijzingen is een kunst op zichzelf. Natuurlijk niet de gebruiksaanwijzingen op hoog technisch niveau voor ingenieurs: die zijn gewend aan tekeningen lezen en aan doen wat je doen moet. We bedoelen de aanwijzingen voor de gewone man, de adspirant doe-het-zelver. Hebt u ze zelf besteld of van Sinterklaas gekregen: bouwpakketten voor keukenkasten, televisie-ontvangers, bank-bedstellen? Er zijn van die indrukwekkende stalen gereedschappen (in de vorm van een enorm pistool) voor vader die in zijn vrije tijd alle huishoudelijke klusjes opknapt en zelf het meubilair maakt. Die dingen boren, zagen, hameren, schaven, slijpen, vijlen, timmeren, als je maar het juiste hulpstuk in het juiste gat schuift en de juiste klem aan de juiste bout doet. Het is zweetwerk, vooral als vrouw en kinderen kritisch rondom vader gaan staan, in afwachting van zijn geboor en gezaag. Vader bladert in de gebruiksaanwijzing.

We vonden in het Engelse blad The Observer (4-6-67) een bewonderenswaardig natuurgetrouw verslag van deze bedrijvigheid. Een vertaling in het Nederlands hebben we wel geprobeerd maar we waren daartoe niet in staat. Er staat gelukkig ook nog iets over the Dutch in met hun boorkop. De vaders die zijn ‘afgegaan’ ten overstaan van hun gezin, zullen het getroost lezen.

‘We are in the Do-It-Yourself age - and I was the last to find out. Back in the nineteenth century - you'll find this hard to believe, children - when a man wanted to hammer a nail, he personally was subjected to the back-breaking toil of picking up the thing and going bang bang bang on the nail. Now, in this marvellous twentieth century, you simply pick up your Super Automatic 2,000 rpm Triphammer (only £45, weighing a mere 26 lb.) and ratatatatatata - the nail is clear through the wall, which you couldn't possibly do by yourself.

This power tool I got for my birthday will do absolutely everything saw, hammer, screw things into the wall, dig post holes, drill for oil in the North Sea. That is, it will do all those things if I can ever get it together. Still, to a man with a university education, a few simple instructions should be easy.

Insert the spindle of the eccentric into the chuck, leavin ⅝ in. between chuck face and roller. See Fig 1.' How's that again? Spindle? Eccentric? The only eccentric I know is a don at Oxford, and he hasn't got a spindle to his name. He hasn't even got ⅝ in. to spare. Leaving ⅝ in., my foot! Leaving it where? You leave ⅝ in. around this house for five minutes and the dog eats it.

The great thing about the instructions on my power tool is that they come in five languages. Imagine getting confused in five languages: “Fixer l'axe excentrique du sabot de ponçage dans le mandrin de la perceuse.” Oh, those French! Sexy, even with the power tools. But is this the right attitude for power tools? Certainly not. “Achtung!” says the German instruction sternly. “Spannen Sie die Excenterwelle in das Bohrfutter.”

[p. 82]

All I'm trying to do in all these languages, you understand, is apply a little sandpaper to a little bit of wood. Before I even get started I've got to spannen die Chuck Bohrfutter, who married that nice Perceuse girl, into de boorkop. (Dutch, I guess. The Dutch even stick their fingers into the dike with power tools in this enlightened age.)

Besides being polylingual, power tool instructions are what I can only call poly-intelligent. One minute they're demanding postgraduate knowledge of physics plus a first in languages; the next they're treating you like an idiot. “Switch off power unit when not in use,” it says right here. Now, for heaven's sake, what did you think I was going to do with the power unit when not in use - perpetual motion?

Of course, there are a lot of things that a power tool could do that it doesn't do. It could clean the cottage, for instance. Have you ever cleaned an eighteenth-century cottage? It's a little like archaeology. Under one layer of nineteenth-century dirt you find another, deeper, layer and you wonder who left that. Those eighteenth-century hired girls. I'll be bound.

It won't feed the baby, either, the power tool, and what I want to know is why not? You mean an super machine like yourself, with your massive brain, can't perform a simple operation like feeding the baby? Shame on you! All you do is attach clamping arm E on the baby's bottom (see Fig 1) insert the nipple (Inserten die Niebelungen) into Orifice C (be sure you don't get it into Orifice B, which is for something else) and switch off the baby when not in use.

I just got a letter from my brother in America who is an old Do-It-Yourself veteran from way back.

We've long since given up power tools in the land of the free,” he writes. “Too many of us have lost fingers, toes, and loved ones. Turn back before it's too late.”

Well, he has nothing to fear. Already I've lost wingbolt nut E, without which you can't even die Montage beginnen.’