Weasel Words

Ah, the holidays.  Tis the season for being inundated with advertisements shouting at us, “buy our shit!”  I enjoy this strictly for the opportunity to identify the bullshit in the ads.  I love picking out weasel words.

Weasel words, for those who don’t know, are words or phrases which seem to say something meaningful or specific, but actually don’t say anything at all.  You’ve probably heard the statement, “save up to fifty percent on widgets.”  Half off sounds great, but is any of it actually half off?  That whole “up to” portion means there’s a cap, an upper limit at half off, but what’s the bottom limit?  Zero percent off is included in the set defined by “up to fifty percent.” 

Recently I heard some spokesman claim, “save up to fifty percent or more on selected widgets.”  Does that even mean anything?  If advertisers are going to continue to make meaningless statements they might as well be delivered in Klingon.  At least then their utter bullshit words might sound somewhat intimidating.

Taco Bell has this new steak nacho affair.  In their commercials they claim, “Triple the steak.”  Triple the steak compared to what?  The commercials never say.  Three times none is still none.

So what are you trying to tell us, Taco Bell?  Is it that there is still no actual steak in your nachos?