I’m a big believer in the written outline. It’s a useful tool, a basic skeleton upon which a story or essay is fleshed out. With its simple hierarchical structure, listing major divisions with upper-case Roman numerals, subdivisions with capital letters, and further slicings with so-called Arabic numerals, then lower-case letters, and so on, the outline is an elegant way to organize ideas into a cohesive, flowing piece of writing that insinuates itself into the reader’s brain like a Ceti eel. Who could have a problem with that?
The answer, I found out, was some of my students. They didn’t object to the organizational method per se, but rather my insistence that a heading of “A” or “1” was acceptable only if it were succeeded somewhere by a “B” or “2.” My explanations sometimes fell upon unbelieving ears, occasionally leading to admittedly creative arguments:
“You can’t slice a pizza into one piece.”
“Well, what if you make a single cut from the center straight to the edge? That’s a slice!”
It didn’t help that a couple of my English teacher colleagues sided with the students on this point. I attributed that to having a mind more attuned to reason and ideas rather than calculations, the left/right brain theory. The atmosphere in the teachers’ lounge was contentious that day.
As time passed, I developed some better arguments, or shall I say explanations, to use with my students. You don’t give something a title of One unless you anticipate that there will be a Two. Imagine, I said, if at a wedding you heard, “Do you take this man to be your first husband?” Likewise, the phrase “World War I” did not exist until the beginning of World War II (this was a new historical fun fact for some in the classroom). If John Smith has no children, he’d be silly to call himself John Smith, Sr. Should the situation change, the name can change as well. Though not anticipated at the beginning, we can find ourselves later referring to a first marriage, a second Bush Administration, a third Godfather movie.
It’s true that an appellation of First can be applied when there is an expectation of more to follow. When this is done by royalty, it lends the air of being at the beginning of a dynasty. In contrast, Pope Francis declines to place a number after his title, perhaps as a show of humility. (His onetime predecessor John Paul I was not so openly modest, and, well, look what happened to him.)
Similarly, printings of books are numbered from the beginning, with the confidence that sales will bring about multiple repetitions. [Gratuitous literary anecdote: bombastic author Alexander Woollcott, receiving a shipment of his latest book fresh from the printer, stated, “Ah, what is so rare as a Woollcott first edition?” “A Woollcott second edition,” quipped his office mate Franklin P. Adams.] A designation of “first” for anything implies that there will be more, and creates a mood of suspense, but also a condition of being incomplete. It’s one thing to admit to murder; it’s a bit more to say you’ve committed your first murder.
[Mood-lightening quip, from my ninth-grade biology teacher Mitchell Cox: “My goal is to make my second million; I’ve given up on my first million.”]
Do numerations unnecessarily complicate our lives? And why is “Second” the most frequently occurring numerical street name? The answer to the latter is that often the first constructed street in a town was called “Main” or “Grand” or some such, with the numbering added only as parallel streets were constructed later. As for the former, the answer is a subjective one, worthy of pondering with both sides of your brain. Your first brain.
Numbering gives us the illusion that there is order in this pick-up sticks world and, especially, that we are uniquely equipped to identify it, very comforting. That’s what I think. Thanks for another good one, Guy!