It’s a lonely place on the fringes of the Green Army

If there has been one result of Ireland’s performance at the Euros, it has been the return of hyperbole and overstatement, writes Clodagh Finn

IT’S a very lonely place here outside the Boys in Green fanzone. I’m with them, of course, just not fervently enough.

I did not weep like a babe when we made it through to the last 16. I did not feel my heart break, mend again, then burst into pieces with unfettered joy during the game against Italy. I did not, to my shame, even watch it.

Little wonder, then, that I failed to dissolve into a puddle of pure emotion, or register the epochal significance of getting a chance to get back at Thierry Henry for that infamous handball.

I am traitorous. I know that can be the only word for it.

Yet, I can’t help but pump the air at the extravagant display of first-class hyperbole that has accompanied Ireland’s adjective-defying 1-0 victory. And three cheers (though that seems hardly enough) for the Green Army who have charmed the locals wherever they have gone.

It has been a sheer joy to hear the familiar return of glorious overstatement and the magnificent superlatives that go with football fandom. Exaggeration does not get much better than this. Some compared photographs of the winning side to a Renaissance masterpiece. Others said they would die happy now, while others still compared Robbie Brady to God.

We haven’t heard football grandiloquence of this magnitude since, when, Italia ’90 or USA ’94?

Though something rather disturbing has happened in the interim. The complete loss of perspective that was once the natural preserve of die-hard football fans has spread. It used to be something used only by the type of men – and yes, maybe women too – who were more likely to cry at a football game than at the birth of their children.

What was strange about the recent outbreak of over-the-top excess was that it no longer felt out of place because the amplified lingo of the footie fan has spread far beyond the football pitch. The language of exaggeration is now the lingua franca of the internet; you’re nobody online these days unless you can go from zero to ‘awesome!!!!’ in a millisecond. You’ve seen the posts. A picture of an ‘a-maaazing’ matcha latte, or an OMG, awe-inspiring dress (“I’m literally dying”) or a blurry shot of a restaurant dish that is so superlative-defying, you “can’t even” [begin to describe the torrent of emotional responses that it stirs in you].

It’s easy to understand the hype because this is a kind of performance – a post has to shout loudest if it’s going to cut through all the white noise out there. And, anyway, posts like that are fun. Sort of.

What is less amusing is the way that exaggeration has insinuated itself into the fabric of all areas of daily life, at home and at work.

Things can’t simply be good any more. To have any impact at all, you’ll need to ratchet up the intensity to ensure a staggering experience of life-changing magnitude.

In the same way, bad has never been worse. Nobody heeds a warning unless doom and devastation are snapping at their heels.

So how does that translate to the real world? Here’s a sample scenario that is very probably being played out at an office near you. Employee A gets an email with the word ‘urgent’ written in capital letters and in red in the subject line, accompanied by a series of exclamation marks that are standing to attention like a row of cocked rifles.

It’s bad enough that the person who sent it is sitting a mere four feet away but, worse than that, the ‘urgent’ mail contains nothing of earth-shattering significance.

So, in an unusual but highly desirable turn of events, Employee A turns to her colleague across the desk and says, rather calmly: “Don’t put the word ‘urgent’ into the subject line unless someone needs an ambulance.” A triumph for clear communication and a classic piece of advice that should become ‘rule number one’ in a new book on email etiquette.

Rule number two might be this: ask yourself honestly if your email passes the Lassie test? How many times have you opened your inbox to find a breathless piece of jumbled writing that barks at you insistently like Lassie at the kitchen door: you know she’s trying to tell you something, but you have no idea what it is?

Which brings us to the adjective problem and rule number three. In the same way that food labels warn about additives, the email-writing guidebook might contain the following phrase: “Artificial adjectives can seriously damage your ability to communicate. Use sparingly.” Though, right now, the rush to overstatement and exaggeration seems to be winning hands down. Both sides of the Brexit campaign were characterised by the kind of rhetoric that would have put a teenager whose go-to phrase is ‘You’ve ruined my life’ to shame.

Now, doomsday or Independence Day – depending on your point of view – has dawned. Already, there’s been a stampede to shower Britain’s decision to leave the EU with inflammatory adjectives.

There are the triumphalist outbursts from the likes of Ukip leader Nigel Farage. Sample quote: “Dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent nation”.

And the nightmare predictors who forecast economic meltdown. Sample quote from MEP Brian Hayes: “A bridge to the unknown has been crossed.” Though, strangely enough, that doesn’t stop him defining that ‘unknown’ as “a massive political earthquake” and warning that Ireland is right to be apprehensive.

The vote is over, but it’s not too late to ask both sides to dispense with the glib and overblown Trumpesque debate and return to reason.

Let’s leave the hyperbole to the footie fans who know only too well how to use it. Sure, as everyone knows, football is not a matter of life and death, as the famous Bill Shankly once said. It’s much more serious than that.