The phrase"short, sharp shock" describes a punishment that is severe but which only lasts for a short time.[1] It is an example ofalliteration. Although the phrase originated earlier, it was popularised inGilbert and Sullivan's 1885comic operaThe Mikado, where it appears in the song near the end of Act I, "I Am So Proud".[2] It has since been used in popular songs, song titles, and literature, as well as in general speech.
Mary I of England used the phrase in 1555 to refer to what she hoped would be a brief and effective use of brutality to persuade the populace to return to Catholicism bypublicly burning a small number of visible Protestant heretics, rather than making a larger more systemic purge.[3]
John Conington's 1870 translation of theFirst Satire of Horace includes the following lines:
Yon soldier's lot is happier, sure, than mine:
Oneshort, sharp shock, and presto! all is done.[4]
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In Act I of the 1885Gilbert and Sullivan operaThe Mikado, theEmperor of Japan, having learned the town of Titipu is behind on its quota of executions, has decreed that at least one beheading must occur immediately. Three government officials, Pooh-Bah, Ko-Ko and Pish-Tush, discuss which of them should be beheaded to save the town from ruin. Pooh-Bah says that, although his enormous pride would normally prompt him to volunteer for such an important civic duty, he has decided to "mortify" his pride, and so he declines this heroic undertaking. He points out that Ko-Ko is already under sentence of death for thecapital crime of flirting, and so Ko-Ko is the obvious choice to be beheaded. The three characters then sing the song "I Am So Proud". In the last lines of the song, they contemplate "the sensation" of the "short, sharp shock" caused by being beheaded:
To sit in solemn silence in a dull, darkdock,
In a pestilential prison, with alifelong lock,
Awaiting the sensation of ashort, sharp shock,
From a cheap and chippychopper on a big black block![5]
The phrase is spoken byroadie Roger Manifold in thePink Floyd song "Us and Them" on the band's 1973 album,The Dark Side of the Moon.[6]
Short Sharp Shock is the name of a 1984 album byChaos UK. It also appears in the title of an album,Short Sharp Shocked, byMichelle Shocked and the EP "Shortsharpshock" byTherapy?.Short Sharp Shock is the name of a crossover thrash band fromLiverpool, England. The phrase is used in the song "East Side Beat" bythe Toasters, and in the 1980 songStand Down Margaret bythe Beat. It can also be found in the lyrics of aBilly Bragg song entitled "It Says Here"[7] found on his 1984 albumBrewing Up with Billy Bragg and of aThey Might Be Giants song entitled "Circular Karate Chop" on their 2013 albumNanobots.[8]
In literature, the phrase is used in the title of a 1990 fantasy novel,A Short, Sharp Shock byKim Stanley Robinson. In the 1996 fantasy novel byTerry Pratchett,Feet of Clay, police commanderSam Vimes is "all for giving criminals a short, sharp shock", meaning electrocution.
Since Gilbert and Sullivan used the phrase inThe Mikado, "short, sharp shock" has been used in political discourse in the UK.[9] The phrase met renewed popularity with respect to government policy on young offenders pursued by theConservative government of 1979–1990 under Margaret Thatcher,[10] having appeared in the 1979 Conservative Policy manifesto, which promised that the party would "experiment with a tougher regime as a short, sharp shock for young criminals".[11] These policies led to the enactment of theCriminal Justice Acts of 1982 and1988 which, among other reforms, replacedborstals withyouth detention centres.[12] The "short, sharp shock" programme had no effect on reoffending, with more than half of offenders being convicted again within a year and young offenders being released back into the community "stronger, fitter, wiser and meaner".[13][14] The policy was abandoned.[14]