The Best Things Come in Threes

It is no coincidence that the British Government’s communications on the Covid-19 crisis is anchored on a three-part slogan: Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives.

Notwithstanding the lengths to which certain government advisers have gone to undermine the credibility of the message (270 miles, to be precise), it remains rhetorically sound. It has rhythm, economy, cadence, and speaks to our emotional attachment to home, our loved ones, and our beloved National Health Service (NHS).

Most important of all, it is memorable. It stands a good chance of being acted upon by the public. If you want people to do something, say it in a three. For example, the road safety slogan Stop! Look! Listen! the Australian Slip! Slop! Slap! campaign against skin cancer (slip on a long-sleeved shirt, slop on sunscreen, and slap on a sunhat), or the intensely annoying See it, Say it, Sorted counter-terrorism adverts on the UK transport system.

Effective communicators have long understood the power of three. Things in threes are solid, dependable, predictable. They stand up without wobbling, like a three-legged stool. They are ingrained into our culture, and hard-wired into our brains. Three is a magic number, and not just in Kabbalah.

We live out our lives: birth, copulation and death as TS Eliot cheerily put it. We grow up listening to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Three Blind Mice or Row, Row, Row Your Boat. We read The Three Musketeers or Three Men in a Boat. We graduate from nursery rhymes to sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll or wine, women and song. There weren’t five little pigs or four wise men or two witches.

Threes can be discombobulating as well as comfortable: Philip Larkin uses three-line stanzas, or tercets, in his poem Talking in Bed to suggest a third party in the marriage. Two’s company, but three’s a crowd.

And don’t get me started on advertising: Beanz Meanz Heinz, Vorsprung Durch Technik, Every Little Helps, Just Do It, Snap! Crackle! Pop! and you don’t need me to tell you what a Mars a day helps you to do.

Threes work on the page, such as the three recommendations submitted by civil servants to their political masters (hint: they always want you to choose number 2), or the structure of a three-act play, novel or film script.

An effective business proposal or pitch might start with a problem, then the drama it creates, then the solution to that problem. Problem. Drama. Solution. This may be a problem we didn’t know we had, such as the age-old conundrum that has foxed sages and baffled oracles down the centuries: taking two bottles into the shower? Not me. I use Wash & Go from Vidal Sassoon. Thank heavens we’ve fixed that one, now for the Middle East.

Although we like reading or seeing things in threes, or things that are structured in threes, threes work best on the ear. They sound good. The ancient Greeks called them tricolons (meaning three parts). Tricolons form a vital part of the presenters’ and speech-writers’ toolkit. When I teach speech-writing, I ask my students to name some famous tricolons, and usually we can hit 20 or 30 without too much sweat:

Friends, Romans, Countrymen

Veni, Vidi, Vici

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

Education, Education and Education

Government of the people, by the people, for the people

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Once you start to list them out, from all the different continents, centuries and languages, you realise they come in multiple forms. They don’t exist solely in English, or even European languages, but appear in every tongue. The Iranian revolution was founded on the principle Estiqlal, Azadi, Jomhuri-ye Eslami! Swahili speakers reckon that Uvumilivu, pambano na bidii ndizo zinazochangia sana kwa mafanikio. (‘Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success’). How true.

Comedians use them all the time, usually with the third part a discordant twist on the first two. You set up a pattern, then break it. When Watership Down was in the cinemas, an enterprising local butcher put a sign in his shop window You’ve read the book, you’ve seen the film, now eat the characters.

They can be just three words, like the Mark Antony, the Julius Caesar, or the revolting French. You can miss out the ‘and’ before the last one in your list, because good rhetoric is not the same as good grammar. How about location, location, location? It sounds better without a conjunction. Or Comic Book Guy’s Worst. Episode. Ever. Tony Blair adds an ‘and’ before the last ‘education’ which I’ve always thought spoils it.

If you want, you can put in too many conjunctions: tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. The Greeks called his polysyndeton. Shakespeare stretches out the line to suggest the longevity of life.

Or tricolons can come in a long form, such as Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, or never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. The last part can be much longer than the first two, for example Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. If the tricolon rises in size or importance, for example Earl Spencer’s family in grief, in a country in mourning before a world in shock, then it’s called a tricolon crescens or ascending tricolon.

The Romans said omne trium perfectum — everything in a three is perfect, which is broadly true except for misfortunes, buses, and pop bands (with the honourable exception of The Jam). The best thing is to have a go, try them out for size and write in threes. I’ve used seven or eight just in this piece. Did you spot them? Next time you’re zooming that pitch or proposal, or crafting some compelling copy, remember four is too many and two is too few.

Paul Richards is a writer-for-hire.