A new and improved look at the same old advertising euphemisms that never seem to fade

It has been two or three years since I noted the widespread use of the word affordable to describe something that was not, in any common sense of the word, affordable at all.

We were assured that $200,000 houses were affordable; that $30,000 cars were affordable.

Affordable for whom?

Affordable may be fading, though I still hear and see it. Like all hyperbolic words used in advertising, affordable is bound to fall into disrepute as soon as consumers find out that it doesn’t mean what it says.

One phrase that won’t go away, however, is new , improved , which is applied periodically to household cleaners to gain a momentary lead over a competitor’s product, which, the phrase implies, is the same old inefficient product it was a year ago.

I have always wondered at the apparently unlimited ability of technologists to find new, improved formulas for what must be pretty much the same old product, year after year.

We are such dumb believers in the power of science, however, that we will believe anything that is heralded as a breakthrough--or new and improved--especially if it has an x in its name.

As Tertullian said, according to the erudite Edgar A. Shoaff, “I believe because it is absurd.”

Meanwhile, Patsy A. Weaver of Laguna Beach has picked up a new phrase in real estate advertising.

It is deferred maintenance , a more pompous substitute for the old reliable fixer-upper , which was itself a euphemism for a house in such a state of disrepair that its roof leaked, its plumbing was clogged, its electrical system was inoperative, if not dangerous, and its ceilings were about to collapse.

The Connecticut house that Cary Grant and Myrna Loy rehabilitate in “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House,” from the novel of that name, was a fixer-upper.

Yet another popular advertising euphemism for a house that is all but ready to fall down is “needs Tender Loving Care,” a phrase so common that it is often abbreviated to “needs TLC.” What that usually means is that the house needs new wiring, new plumbing, new paint and a new roof.

Mrs. Weaver has an idea that the reason deferred maintenance appears in real estate ads these days is that people who live in houses can’t get anyone to come around and repair them.

It has been her experience, she says, that whenever she telephones a construction or repair service to employ help, she is told that the person she wants is “in the field.”

“In the past three days I have telephoned my plumber, my real estate agent, the refrigerator repair person and the man in charge of tree trimming for the city of Laguna Beach. In each case I have been told by an answering service or receptionist that ‘he or she is in the field.’ ”

She also called her attorney, only to be told that he was in court. She called her husband’s office, only to be told by his answering service that he was “in the field.”

Mrs. Weaver wonders what field her husband and all those other non-respondents are wandering in.

She is lucky to have gotten through to a receptionist or an answering service. When I call anyone for help these days I am usually told by a machine not to hang up, my call will be answered in due time. Then I hear elevator music. Sometimes the music is interrupted and the message is repeated. Then back to music. If you wait it out, I have found, you will get a live person.

Sometimes they call me . I got a call the other day from a department store at which my wife and I have had an account for at least 20 years, and whose bills we always pay promptly.

The woman asked if I was Jack C. Smith, and when I said yes, she told me, without further question, that we were two months behind in our bill. When I finally satisfied her that she must have the wrong Jack C. Smith, she said, “Ignore the call,” and hung up. Didn’t even say she was sorry.

Oh, well, we could have been two months behind in our bill.

Not all services and tradesmen are unresponsive, though. The other day I called the Ambrose Fence Co., in Eagle Rock, to see if they could do anything about our dog escaping from her fenced yard. Young Gary Ambrose himself came out that same afternoon. He said we would probably have to dig a trench under the existing chain link fence and add a foot of fence underneath, to keep the dog from digging out.

While we were talking the dog got out. Ambrose happened to see her do it. He said she hadn’t gone under the fence, which is what, against my common sense, I had begun to think she was doing, but had squeezed through a gap in the fencing at a corner. The mystery was solved.

“You could wire that gap together,” he said. “Might do it.”

He called the next morning to give me an estimate. I told him I didn’t need the work done. I had wired the gap and the dog hadn’t got out since. Evidently my first guess had been right; she could not dig a hole deep enough for her to get through.

“No problem,” he said. “Any time.”

By the way, I had to deal with the problem myself because my wife was in the field.