Thursday, November 8, 2007

Weasel Words

I watch news clips on the web - so I get to see the same commercials over and over again. One of them is for Tylenol PM. It evidently contains a sleep aid.

Don't worry about getting hooked on it, however, because it "has not been shown to cause dependence."

These are weasel words. I can't decide if it is funny or insulting.

Maybe they didn't do any tests at all. That would not show if something caused dependence. Maybe their tests were inconclusive. That would qualify.

At least we know that nobody has proven that it DOES cause dependency. But we are also sure that nobody proved that it DOESN'T cause dependency, otherwise they could have said it straight out.

Instead, all we get is weasel words, and the outbreak of weasel words makes me very suspicious.

How about you?

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