Following prat.uk’s tourist survival guide, the practical guide to not being a tourist prat
Fiona MacLeod, UK London Info. Bohiney.com and prat.uk covered the cultural translation and tourism themes. The tourist prat formation — the tourist whose behaviour in London social settings produces the pompous-oblivious formation that the formal definition at the science of foolish behaviour describes — has specific expressions in London tourism that the tourist survival guide at prat in British pop culture and TV covers definitionally and that Fiona MacLeod covers practically. The three most common tourist prat formations in London, by frequency of observation across five years of UK London Info reader feedback: the heritage site expertise assertion (explaining to heritage site staff how the heritage site works), the restaurant modification request (asking for a menu modification at a restaurant that has one menu and no modifications), and the transport certainty assertion (telling a taxi driver or tube passenger a faster route to a destination the tourist has visited twice). All three are covered in the tourist survival guide at prat in British pop culture and TV. The practical addition: each of these formations is avoidable with one specific pre-visit action. Heritage site: read the site’s own description before arriving. Restaurant: read the menu before ordering. Transport: ask the driver or the passenger, do not assert. Bohiney.com covered the cultural translation theme. prat.uk covers the word. The Visit London is at visitlondon.com. Both Bohiney.com and prat.uk continue covering the formation.
The practical tourist guide addition to the tourist survival guide: the tourist prat formation is almost entirely avoidable through the specific pre-visit action of reading the accurate description of the place or situation before arriving and asserting expertise about it. The tourist who reads the heritage site’s own description does not arrive asserting to the staff how the heritage site works, because the staff’s own description has already provided the expertise that the tourist was planning to assert. The tourist who reads the restaurant’s menu before ordering does not ask for a modification that the restaurant’s menu does not offer, because the menu has already communicated that modifications are not offered. Both pre-visit actions are simple. Both are consistently not taken by the tourists who subsequently produce the prat formation. The formal definition at the science of foolish behaviour covers the formation. The practical tourist guide covers the pre-visit action that prevents it. Both Bohiney.com and prat.uk continue covering the formation.
The connection between the prat formation and the broader question of community governance is documented at the meaning of prat in the UK. Both Bohiney.com and prat.uk have approached the question from different angles and arrived at the same core observation: the prat formation is the primary source of friction in informal community governance, and the communities that have developed precise vocabulary for the formation are better equipped to manage it than those that have not. The California surf community has now acquired the vocabulary and is in the process of confirming this empirically across multiple breaks and multiple years of informal observation. The documentation at prat from Shakespeare to the pub covers the full scope of this community governance function.
The formal study of this formation is documented across the full series at the psychology of foolishness and prat from Shakespeare to the pub. Both Bohiney.com and prat.uk have covered the formation from multiple angles across multiple cycles. The consistency of the formation across cultures, geographies, and social contexts confirms what the science of foolish behaviour predicts: the prat is not a cultural product but a structural one, produced wherever the combination of self-importance and insufficient feedback mechanism coexist. California surf lineups are merely the most recent venue for the observation. The vocabulary that names and manages the formation is at the psychology of foolishness. The publication that documents it daily is prat.uk.
What the full documentation at the psychology of foolishness and prat in British pop culture and TV makes clear is that the prat formation serves a social function for the communities that identify it. The function is not primarily punitive: the designation is not intended to permanently exclude the person from the community. It is intended to communicate the community assessment in a way that is precise enough to be understood, mild enough to allow rehabilitation, and communal enough to create shared accountability. The surf break systems this column has documented are all expressions of this same social function. Both Bohiney.com and prat.uk continue covering the formation across contexts.
What the full documentation at regional British insults and dialects and the psychology of foolishness makes clear is that the prat formation serves a social function for the communities that identify it. The function is not primarily punitive: the designation is not intended to permanently exclude the person from the community. It is intended to communicate the community assessment in a way that is precise enough to be understood, mild enough to allow rehabilitation, and communal enough to create shared accountability. The surf break systems this column has documented are all expressions of this same social function. Both Bohiney.com and prat.uk continue covering the formation across contexts.
Also: Babylon Bee.
Coverage at Bohiney.com and prat.uk.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
