Stop calling them rolling coffins

For reasons I cannot fathom, GM included a PowerPoint presentation in its recall agreement with federal safety regulators that included instructions on how to speak like a weaselly lawyer when discussing the stuff we used to call safety defects, n/k/a items that do not perform to design.  For reasons I cannot fathom even more, someone seems to have combed through actual employee emails to make a list of particularly unhelpful expressions, and quoted them in this soon-to-be-made-public document.  Terms to avoid include:
“Kevorkianesque,” apparently a reference to Jack Kevorkian, the doctor who claimed to have helped more than 130 patients commit euthanasia, was one of the presentation’s “judgment words” to be avoided. Others included: “apocalyptic,” “Band-Aid,” “Challenger,” “Cobain,” “Corvair-like,” “death trap,” “decapitating,” “disemboweling,” “genocide,” “grenadelike,” “Hindenberg,” “impaling,” “rolling sacrophagus (tomb or coffin),” “spontaneous combustion,” “Titanic,” “widow-maker” or “words or phrases with biblical connotation."
I am not making this up.

5 comments:

Grim said...

I wonder if there's an industry standard.

Grim said...

Actually, even "items that do not perform to design" compares favorably to the government's "industry standard," a.k.a. 'We told you all along that you'd have to change your plan.'

Dad29 said...

While The Press has a field day with this, let's recall that The Press refers to criminals as "alleged....." prior to conviction.

That's because they lost a few large lawsuits.

Texan99 said...

I don't fault them for avoiding terms like these! I just think it sort of defeats the purpose to publish the guidelines.

E Hines said...

Maybe call them Moskvitches....

Eric Hines