Conference thebay::joyoflex

    National Pubic Radio, a respected news service, sometimes misleads
    you.  When they reported on the recent incident in New York where
    a gang of white teenagers chased three black men, and black man
    was killed by a car, the report stated that "two men survived the 
    attack."  However terrible the behavior, they could have
    reported that "one man was killed in the incident."  They reported
    it to make a listener think that all three were threatened by death,
    which didn't seem to be the case.

    How about media advertising which claims: "There is no stronger
    product on the market..." or "Nothing beats XYZ for relief...".
    
    What they are implying is that their product is the strongest, etc.
    In reality, they are simply saying that their product has the same
    strength as the competitive products.

    One marvelous way to mislead is to use the passive voice.
    
    "It was found that ..." may sound objective, but it often can enable
    people to duck responsibility or blame.  Same with "It was decided
    that ..."
    
    In some news reports, if a person is not out of favor by the reporter
    or editor, the copy might read, "[Person] called the news conference
    to explain ..."; if out of favor, the same thought might be conveyed,
    "[Person], at a news conference, attempted to explain ...."  This
    is particularly common during election years, but has been used
    at other times.        
    
    In ads, the magic phrase "up to" covers a multitude of sins.  "Using
    our diet pills, you are guaranteed to lose up to 20 pounds of ugly
    fat within three weeks."  This means that as long as you don't lose
    _more than_ 20 poounds, the guarantee's good: indeed, you can even
    gain weight without really invalidating the guarantee.  Lose even
    one ounce, and there's no question the diet pills have lived up
    to their guarantee.  "Up to" is used in a lot of ads.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

And don't forget sales adverts which say, "Save up to 60% and more!"
whatever that's supposed to mean. 

I am also always a little disconcerted by "twice as fast as."  To me, it 
always seemed you could only be "as fast as" something once.  After that 
you were "two times faster."  I always wondered if that terminology 
could be used to mislead.
				>>>==>PStJTT

Here's one that annoyed me.  In New Yorker Magazine, an ad appears lately
that looks like this:

	FREE almonds !

	Buy box of grapefruits by mail at the regular price of $15.97
	and we'll include a bag of FREE almonds !

	Just dial toll-free (800)...

It kind of pisses me off.  I mean, it's not like they were previously
offering grapefruits *without* almonds for $15.97.  They weren't, as
far as I can recall.  So who do they think they are, claiming that
the almonds are free ?  All it really is is almonds+grapefruits at
$15.97.

/Eric

    re .5:
    
    reminds me of the "1 cent sales" at drugstores. You could either
    buy one item at full price or two items for 1/2 price (plus a penny).
    
                                                   
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    This makes me think of all the times we've been midlead and/or mislead
    others thru the use of statistics.  Too large a topic for this
    discussion.
    
    On the topic of misleading wording in product advertising, etc.
    Consumer Reports publishes some great examples on the last page
    of each issue.  They're pretty funny.

    re .7:
                                                   
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    Wasn't that Samuel Clemens, Steve? 
    
    There is a difference between fraud and open-ended advertising.  
    If I say, "No product beats mine for ending headaches," as long 
    as all products are equal, no harm has been done.  The consumer 
    is left to make his own decision.  In this example, your headache 
    will be stopped as well by my product as by any other. 
    
    However, if I say, "My product will not only relieve your headache,
    but increase you IQ,"  I have lied.  If I accept your money for
    my product but refuse to give you what you paid for, I have forcefully
    denied you of your property.  That is a crime.  It is also immoral.
                                                                     
    Ronald Reagan was indeed trying to draw attention from a legitimate
    question, and not only Carter but the moderators and the voters
    let him get away with it.  It would have been easy to say, "Mr.
    Reagan, this is the first time I have ever raised the question.
     If you have heard it before, it must be because it occured to someone
    else, too.  If you evaded the question before like you did just
    now, I am sure the other person will be gratefull to me for asking
    you AGAIN: whatever-it-was.  Nobody did that, though.  Reagan wasn't
    a crook for evading, but Carter and the voters were suckers to let
    him get away with it.   Robert Heinlein did P.T. Barnum one better:
    "It is immoral to allow a sucker to keep his money."
    
    Wess
     

  And sometimes advertisers are taken to task for making perfectly reasonable
  claims.  A couple of months ago, the channel 7 "consumer advocate," Phyllis
  Eliasberg, complained bitterly about a company that made toy dinosaurs out
  of sponge.  She said that kiddies were being horribly misled by claims that
  the dinosaurs got "up to 200 times bigger" when you put them in water.
  She said it wasn't so.  She went on to say that she called the company and
  got some cockamamie story about volume being equal to length times width
  times height.  So the claim was indeed accurate but this did not faze our
  intrepid consumer advocate in the least.

  I think that a kid who bought one of these and who learned a lesson in
  simple arithmetic as a result got a good deal.

  I also think that a course at the grammar school level on the 
  decipherment of advertising claims would be a wonderful addition to the
  curriculum.  The kids might even think it was fun...

  JP

    Re .11
    
    If these are the same toys that were hammered on consumers programs
    over here, and (I believe) later banned, then Phyllis Eliasberg
    would have been doing your consumers a far greater service by pointing
    out that if ingested by a small child, they would indeed get up
    to 200 times bigger, with fatal results.
    
    Jeff

    	A simple survey at our local bistro shows that those who drink
    the water have almost a 30% chance of becoming pregnant. The incidence
    of pregnancy amongst those that drink wine is 0%. You can draw your 
    own conclusions!

Some of the most carefully crafted misleading language appears in bleach
advertisements.  Since bleach is bleach (the products are all the same),
and brand names like Clorox can sell for more than 3X as much as the generics,
the ad people really twist their language to make it sound like Clorox or
Purex is better than the cheaper brands and worth the price difference.

Re .-1,

The same is true of many commodity products, such as
acetaminophen (Tylenol, Anacin 3, Panadol, etc.),
milk (2% milk is 2% milk - how can one *really* taste
better than another?), flour, sugar, and so on.

Bruce

    One of my current hot buttons is the tendency of TV news to interview
    someone (anyone) who can somehow be tied to a news event.  Last
    night we got an interview with (roughly) "the AUNT of Mr. Z who
    MAY be held captive by the same group of terrorists holding the
    4 professors".  The Challenger disaster also brought forth interviews
    with distant relatives of astronauts (not particularly members of
    the crew).
    
    Next time your lanchorman introduces an interview subject , LISTEN!

    On a plane last week between St Louis and Salt Lake, I asked for
    Champagne, and was offered a choice of two bottles of sparkling
    wine brewed in California.  Both claimed to be Champagne (I chose
    the Paul Masson because the label looked nicer).
    
    In our part of the world, the only wines that can carry the word
    "Champagne" are those brewed in the Champagne region of France.
    I wonder if Paul Masson exports his product, and if so, what he
    calls it.
    
    Incidentally, it was quite good.
    Jeff.

    In the early part of the century, there was a trade treaty signed by
    many countries about alcohol. One of the agreements was that only
    sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France could be called
    "Champagne." The U.S. did not sign the treaty. Prohibition was in
    effect in the U.S., so it was not politically wise to be associated
    with such a treaty. Some U.S. vinters (notably Chandon) call their
    concoction "sparkling wine" in voluntary compliance with that treaty.
    Others (as you noticed) do not.
    
    	Jon

>  In our part of the world, the only wines that can carry the word
>  "Champagne" are those brewed in the Champagne region of France.

    Personally, I'd rather not drink wine that had been brewed.
    
    MATT

    Re .17, .18:
    
    Actually, it's more complicated than that.  When somer of the
    California vinyards were established, the owners imported equivalent
    grapes from France.  Then, a number of years ago, some opf the regions
    of France suffered from an extended drought, and plants had to be
    imported back from California to France in order to re-establish
    some french vinyards.  Therefore, California has a better claim
    to use the French appelations for the wines than, say, Massachusetts
    would.
    
    Re .19:
    
    Well, if the wine is distillede, that might be okay.  Otherwise,
    it's just a lot of ferment.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    Re .20:
    
    It sounds like some California vinyards might have a better claim
    to French appellations than some French vinyards.
    
    
    				-- edp

    I thought the appellations were down Virginia way.

    Nah, they run all the way from Georgia to Canada.
    
    	Jon

    	It is generally agreed (by Frenchmen) that 
    
    
    burble ... burble...     I was going to get pedantic about Champagne,
    but what about Cheddar cheese??!!
    
    	My parents live near Cheddar. It is interesting to watch the
    cheese being made, if you visit near there. What you get here does
    not taste quite the same in spite of the name.
    
    	As another random digression, another thing they make at Cheddar
    is hand-made paper. It is mostly used for legal documents. They
    show parties of schoolkids round, and on the way out hand them a
    sheet, and challenge them to tear it. It is certainly more durable
    than VDU screens!

    re:.20
    
    Steve's story about French grapes being from California might make
    a nice excuse, but it would make any self-respecting wine snob shudder.
    Perhaps it was made up by a California vintner.
    
    In fact, it wasn't a drought, but a blight caused by a little louse
    called phylloxera which killed the vineyards of France.  Phylloxera
    is native to the eastern US, and prevented decent grapes from being
    grown here.  But the native grape species (vitis labrusca, the fox
    grape) coexists nicely with Phylloxera, though it makes lousy wine
    (good jelly, though).  Somebody let a phylloxera into France and
    it spread.  The solution was to plant labrusca roots and graft wine
    grape (vinifera) on top of it; that's the norm in France and most
    of California, too, today.  (Phylloxera is still spreading; a few
    California vineyards don't use grafts, but they're taking chances.)
    
    Anyway, the Californians adopted the name "Burgundy" to mean "cheap
    red wine" and "Chablis" to mean "cheap white wine".  Real Burgundy
    is not cheap, and Chablis is a small village therein which makes
    expensive white wine.  Definitely linguistic abuse.
         fred

    	Yes, it was the bug. In fact it took 50 years, or so, with the
    bug being held at bay by chemical methods. It started in the 1880s
    I think, and the last of the great French vinyards only went over
    to grafted stock because they could not get copper salts during
    the 1939-45 war.

    There once was a grass seed marketed in magazines that was guaranteed
    to never need mowing because it would never grow more than an inch
    long.  Nobody ever got their money back because the seed was spoiled
    and would not sprout or grow at all.
    
    The same magazines used to advertise the guaranteed roach killer
    which turned out to be a little mallet and a block of wood with
    instructions to place roach on block, etc.
    
    

  Yeah, that roach killer ad was a good one.  Whatever article taught
  me about that also mentioned another great one -- a guy in New York
  who offered to teach your dog how to swim.

  JP

    Re .27  I find both of those amusing, but there's a serious side
    to that grass seed one (if it's genuine).  I'm sure no court would
    hesitate in awarding someone their money back if it failed to grow.
    I'm sure the company could be done for fraud, too.
    
    Jeff.

    Someone told me once about a guy who put a classified ad in the
    paper that said, "LAST CHANCE to send your dollar to P.O. Box nnnn..."
    Apparently he made thousands of dollars in a couple of weeks.  Think
    it's worth a try?...
    
    	@V@

    After years of seeing "I want to give my secret to the world before
    it is too late ... you can earn $200,000 a year ... using this proven
    technique ... thousands of potential customers ..." I just HAD to
    find out what it was.  
    
    Do you know?
    
    
    
    	Bronzing Baby Shoes
    
    
    All those statements were "true"!
    
    

    Two more:
    
      - "Want to make n$ in a short time? send me m$ for my secret!"
    	The answer was "do as I did".
    
      - "Failsafe method for outstanding breasts! Send k$ for.."
	Answer: walk on all fours.
    
    Both actually appeared in newspapers in Switzerland (and probably
    other places). They gathered enough "customers" to degenerate in
    lawsuits, etc...
    
    John.