STATING the blindingly obvious is a favourite trick of many headline writers,
but those who contribute to the Newswise online news agency seem to have honed
it to perfection. Here are two examples of the craft from last week’s batch of
releases: “Anti-depressants may benefit depressed patients” and “Skin care
products that can benefit the skin”.
Before long, expect to see Newswise proclaiming “Spectacles may aid vision”,
“Alcohol may impair the senses” and “Food may ease hunger”.
TALKING of headlines, here is a strange one from a recent issue of the
The Wall Street Journal. “Coke Formally Names Daft Chairman, CEO,” the
Journal announced on its front page. One had to read the article to
discover that what this meant was that Coca-Cola has appointed Douglas Daft as
its chairman and chief executive.
Advertisement
And how about this from our old friend the Edinburgh Evening News
(see Feedback, 4 March)? A recent story about a reduction in funding for a
children’s hospital was headlined “Sick kids to be cut in half”, with the
sub-heading “Children’s beds slashed”.
ADVERTISING its product intended to prevent lime scale, the ScaleWatcher
company announces some radical new departures in physical chemistry: “The
principle of physical water conditioning is not new…ScaleWatcher takes this
knowledge into the 21st century by application of DDMF—Dynamic
Disturbance of Molecular Forces. The electronic unit works by sending out a
computerised modulated signal which changes the electrical and physical
properties of scale-forming calcium molecules. This action stops any further
build-up of scale by preventing the molecules from adhering to themselves, or
any other surface. The solubility of water is also increased, therefore existing
scale is dissolved back into the water, and gradually removed.”
We’ll have a litre of that extra-soluble water, please. But then the
company’s American distributor adds to the excitingly innovative nature of the
promotion by claiming what appears to be precisely the opposite at
www.scalewatcher.com: “Scalewatcher creates an induced electric field inside
the pipe whereby the crystal growth of scaling minerals in the water is
promoted. Crystals remain suspended in solution and no longer contribute to the
build-up of hard pipewall deposits.”
You pays your money and you takes your choice. Or not.
PERHAPS someone should explain the meaning of the word “automatic” to the
staff of the Homebase store in Cardiff.
The doors out to the garden section have large stickers on them saying
“automatic doors”. However, these doors do not open when approached. Instead
there is a sign above a button next to the doors which reads: “Customers should
press button to open automatic doors”.
WHAT causes the tendency among professionals to invent increasingly complex
jargon for simple things? Is it to prevent non-specialists understanding what
they are talking about?
For example, people who work in forestry and conservation have long
recognised the importance of dead wood as a habitat. But over time, this
straightforward term has gradually changed in official literature to “coarse
woody debris” or CWD. And now this term, too, is changing. Recent European Union
publications on the natural environment refer to CWD as “necromass”. Poetic it
’t.
Meanwhile, has anyone else noticed the strange mutation of ear nose and
throat departments in hospitals to otorhinolaryngology departments?
WAS this exactly what they meant? A colleague recently received an e-mail
from Aladdin Systems touting its HotTime software for electronic organisers.
“One more thing,” it concluded, after running through the virtues of the
product. “Aladdin always backs its products with a 30 day, no questions-asked,
no money-back guarantee.”
We are confident that Aladdin can rest assured that none of its competitors
offers a comparable guarantee.
AND now we have genetically engineered laboratory rats that are like “real
men”. Unveiled this month in Birmingham at the annual meeting of the British
Endocrine Societies, the rodents were dubbed “SLOB” rats by their creators,
Randip Bains and his colleagues at the National Institute for Medical Research
in Mill Hill, London.
For the record, SLOB stands for “severe late-onset obesity”. In their
presentation in Birmingham, the researchers pointed out that the condition only
affects males, causing them to get obscenely fat when they get older. It has not
so far been recorded whether the rats also sit around all day watching TV,
talking about football and drinking beer.
THE mounting card for the SunMate Spike Base garden sprinkler made by
Irrigation Products of North Salt Lake, Utah, does not explain how to use the
adjustments for either the flow rate or sprinkler angle on the head of the
sprinkler, reader Jack Gilding tell us. However it does contain the important
warning “For outdoor use with cold water only”.
