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:

  1. I wonder if there's an industry standard.

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  2. 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.'

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  3. 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.

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

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  5. Maybe call them Moskvitches....

    Eric Hines

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