Fierce battle rages around news hyperbole

Scientists baffled by increase in ferocity

by Jarrad Harries, science correspondent

As yet another battle is fought today in a dusty city nobody gives a tinker's cuss about, leading scientists believe they have positively identified an increase in so-called "war rage". A spokesman for the Centre for Unlikely Nonsense Theories and Statistics made the following announcement:

"Our studies have demonstrated conclusively that war rage is on the increase. In 1991, only 5 per cent of battles 'raged', compared to 53 per cent that were 'fought'; 28 per cent that were 'joined' and 14 per cent that simply 'happened'. Today, nearly 97 per cent of battles allegedly 'rage', which I'm sure we can all agree is a very worrying statistic. We have also shown an 85 per cent rise in the spread of 'fierce' fighting, as opposed to the gentler, more civilised kind that occurred up to the mid 1980s. Rather than just 'starting', this more aggressive form of conflict invariably 'breaks out', although it has not yet been possible to identify exactly what it breaks out of."

Perhaps even more worrying is that the trend appears to be spreading into other, traditionally less hazardous areas. The anonymous spokesman's comments continued:

"There has also been a five-fold rise in the number of debates that have 'raged' across the countries of the European Union in the last decade, even on topics that are of no interest whatsoever to anybody. This figure rises to an eight-fold increase if we take into account those debates that are 'fierce' and therefore might reasonably be considered to be 'raging' — although it's possible that they're just 'mildly pissed off'. Interestingly, these are also often reported to 'break out' in much the same way as fighting. Very few competitive activities, in fact, seem to have 'commenced', 'started' or 'begun' anywhere in the world since 1997."

The spokesman concluded: "Our team has begun a dialogue with the UN to see if there might be some way in which we can, in words of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, 'get people to chill the fuc*k out'. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm afraid I have to leave; fierce snooker-playing has broken out in Preston as the British Open rages on and I've got a fiver on Hendry."

Economists have estimated that if this finding is correct, the annual cost to the world's vocabulary stands at 1.6 trillion drachma, or about tuppence-ha'penny.

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Fierce battle rages around news hyperbole

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