Five Things the London Gazette Will Announce With Gravitas
A proclamation has been issued.
The proclamation will be read in a voice that has never rushed.
Someone somewhere has been formally acknowledged.
A minor administrative change now has ceremonial weight.
The city is reminded of its enduring character.
Hear Ye, Hear Ye, But Make It Modern
The London Gazette does not break news. It declares it.
According to Professor Edmund Carlisle of the Institute for Ceremonial Language, 93.1 percent of Londoners respond instinctively to phrases such as it has been decreed. Formality, he explains, creates the illusion of permanence.
An anonymous clerk in Whitehall confided, If you use enough capital letters, people assume history is occurring.
Titles, Honours, and Other Carefully Polished Words
The London Gazette specialises in dignified recognition. Promotions, appointments, acknowledgements. Even a new deputy assistant coordinator feels like a chapter in an epic.
Eyewitnesses at a recent civic ceremony described applause so refined it resembled punctuation. One attendee whispered, This feels constitutional, while adjusting cufflinks that may have been inherited.
What The Funny People Are Saying
I love how official announcements sound like they are wearing a waistcoat. — Jerry Seinfeld
In my hometown, you get promoted and that is it. In London, you get proclaimed. — Ron White
If I ever change my email signature, I want it gazetted. — Sarah Silverman
Final Proclamation
The London Gazette will continue to announce, affirm, and formalise. It will describe changes with measured dignity and preserve civic developments in ceremonial prose. And somewhere today, an announcement will be issued that sounds as though it has always existed. It will be read. It will be recorded. It will be gazetted.
This article is a work of satire and social commentary, created entirely through a spirited human collaboration between the world’s oldest tenured professor and a philosophy major turned dairy farmer.
Auf Wiedersehen, amigo!
Somewhere a planner is thinking “I went to university for this?” That person is now on their twelfth coffee.
Las notas al pie son oro. Deberían venderse por separado, sinceramente.