How To Label*

Read until the end…

By Snarky LisaPublished a day ago • 3 min read

Photo by Anastasiya Doicheva on Unsplash

Ah, labeling. Whether with pencil or with pen, whether on paper or on one’s computer, labelling can be quite the affair. The act of defining what a good or a service is has the ability to be quite complicated, in fact.

That being said, this wondrous art can also be simplified down to a few steps. Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else, here is the absolutely perfect guide on how to label anything and everything that exists in this world.

Unlike many of my other articles — this is absolutely, 100 percent guaranteed to work if you listen to my advice here. No ifs, ands or buts. If it seems like something’s going wrong: it’s definitely just your fault.

Be Wrong

The most important part of deciding to label something is to be completely off base when matching a category to it. That’s what putting a tag on the stuff is for, am I right?

So you’ve found a warm fireplace crackling around somewhere? Label it cold as ice. Find a piece of paper in your room with nothing on it — not even in invisible ink? Guess what, its label should be that of a fully filled out sheet. Discover a sack of rotting food which has probably been there for several years, if not decades? Just call it fresh. Really, the list goes on.

Of course, there are areas of life where simply trying to label them what they aren’t will backfire if not carefully done. When it comes to fluid states of affairs, less predictable circumstances, and those that evolve like humans, slinging around what should be a blatantly easy label might not actually be easy at all.

In the above sorts of cases, more complex means must be utilized. This is what the next section of this article will go over.

Research And Simplify

So there’s something you wish to label which is more complicated than just a simple fire or a tangible piece of blank paper. Well, guess what. You just gotta put in a little more thought and care into labelling whatever you wish to.

First of all: research what you want to label. Go through books and/or websites. Talk to others, if it’s more of an offline matter. Be careful with your sources, of course, as you don’t want to display too much sharpness with your labelling as a result of misfound information. But without having any, you’ll have no real idea where to start.

Once you have all the info you need: start simplifying down to the bare minimum. Labels don’t need to be long. Heck, labels don’t even need to be a solid representation of what they’re labeling. What does matter is that there’s some clear idea being shown across, regardless of how accurate it is in the end.

Why would it be that big of a deal when a label is supposed to be small? Release your inhibitions. Lighten your stuffiness up. Don’t worry about the nitty-gritty too much.

If All Else Fails

If all else on this list fails (which it really shouldn’t, but I digress): just use sensitive but true data to label. Don’t break the law, of course. Don’t resort to using someone’s literal bank account info or social security number. But you know the saying — sometimes, desperate times really do call for desperate measures.

Sure, resorting to taking advantage of secrets or something that really shouldn’t be associated with another may seem rather underhanded. But who cares? You’re just using it to label something else. You don’t even have to make it that public, anyways. What’s the problem if it’s a bit reductive?

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By the end of this piece, you should be the perfect labeller!

Any other thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments!

*I do encourage strong research, and I generally discourage breaking the law. However, most of this article is satire.