disclaimer inclusiveness

[George Thompson]

Wandering off topic a bit (no, no -- please don't! -- but I'm going to
anyway)

I am disturbed by a commercial I've seen several times lately.  Seen, but
not heard, since I always mute the soundtrack when the commercials come on.
This Television Camera walks into an airport lounge.  A young woman sees
it, eagerly directs its attention to a television monitor which is showing
an airliner with a damaged nosegear about to touch down.  A pickup truck
darts onto the runway in front of the plane, and catches the nosegear in
its cargo bed.
Now, what troubles me is, that I don't see the usual disclaimer,
"Professional pilot.  Closed runway.  Do not attempt."
In the absence of that warning, some hare-brained kid is going to try to
land an airliner onto his buddy's truck, with regrettable consequences --
regrettable to everyone except the lawyers, that is.

GAT  (father of a lawyer)

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 8:49 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Agree.
>
> So what if one of the few side effects may be "death," as is
> occasionally the case? Ask your doctor about it!
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 8:29 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: disclaimer inclusiveness
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 11/16/2011 09:52 PM, Neal Whitman wrote:
> >>I also find it strange in those commercials when they say "X is
> >>associated with few [not "a few"] side effects, including ..."
> >
> > Here I suspect "with few side effects" is intended to sound like
> > fewer than "with a few side effects".  Something with "a few side
> > effects" sounds dangerous.
> >
> > Joel
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org