Five reasons to hate articles with numbers like five in the title

Five reasons to hate those articles with numbers in their titles such as ‘five reasons/ten reasons/twenty reasons/fifty reasons’ to do something.

You know the kind of thing: ‘twenty ways of learning how to count to twenty,’ or ‘twenty four ways of learning how to tell the time by using the twenty four hour clock.’
Why are these articles numbered?
Maybe it’s because the idea is to create a sense of anticipation, of impending value for money.
‘Wow, if I read this I get a whole twenty reasons for reading it.’
Plenty of other articles might have twenty reasons for reading them, but they’re more modest,
they don’t tell you this in the title.
Or rather they don’t advertise it in the title.
Maybe they should; it pays to advertise, as they say.
But what if you don’t want to read twenty reasons for doing something?
What if you’re so lazy you can’t even be bothered to find one reason for doing something?
‘I hate taking a shower, do I really have to look at twenty reasons for doing it?’
Or how about ‘Fifty reasons to mow your lawn now!’
What if there’s only one reason to mow my lawn, and that’s to stop the army from using it as a training ground in jungle warfare?
Maybe the best solution to the problem is to swap five, ten or twenty for example for ‘several.’
This is fine – it isn’t too challenging.

Author: Paul Gresham

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