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Tipping point

Professor David Crystal

Tipping point. The point of no return. The point at which

something tips over into a new state, or something

becomes dramatically more common – ‘something has

reached the tipping point’. The idea started in physics

where a small amount of weight added to an object in a

balance causes it to topple over, you know, add a little bit

and it’s alright, add a bit more and it’s alright, add a bit

more and it’s alright, and then suddenly, whomph! – over

it goes. That is the tipping point.

So it started in hard science, but then it was taken over by

sociology and popular psychology. Malcolm Gladwell wrote

a bestseller in 2000 called ‘The Tipping Point: How Little

Things Can Make a Big Difference’. And it became a very

attractive notion and everybody suddenly started using this

phrase. And you hear it a lot in the news now, when

suddenly something causes a fuss. For instance, people talk about the

build up of immigrants in a country being steady and then suddenly,

there’s some panic because there’s trouble somewhere, and they say

‘we’ve reached the tipping point’.

I guess I’ve heard it most often recently in relation to global warming.

Global warming seems to have reached ‘the tipping point’, at least as far

as the mind set of many people is concerned. In fact, it’s used so often

these days that it’s almost a cliché. It’s as if ‘tipping point’ has reached

its tipping point!