Corporations Are Becoming Expert at Doublespeak to Mask Bad News

In a recession, companies cut back and workers get fired.

Too blunt? That’s why some companies re-evaluate and consolidate their operations and offer workers a career-change opportunity.

Others streamline their organization, rationalize marketing efforts and assign candidates for derecruitment.

Or they right-size their business and tell workers they are excessed, transitioned or being offered voluntary severance.

If the company is like Chrysler Corp., it might even initiate a career alternative enhancement program and in the same corporate breath throw 5,000 people out of work.

All this is doublespeak, language that pretends to communicate, that tries to make bad seem good, that shifts blame and responsibility. Or is it just plain lies?

Doublespeak has been used for years by government to pull the wool over voters’ eyes. Taxes are revenue enhancements or user fees; invasions of small Caribbean islands are pre-dawn vertical insertions; embarrassing killings by friendly foreign governments are arbitrary deprivations of life.

But business also uses doublespeak to cover up bad news or mislead the public, according to William Lutz, an expert in the field at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

“The company does not want to publicly admit that times are tough and workers have to go,” Lutz said, referring to the many terms used to mask the reality of layoffs.

Author of a best-selling book, “Doublespeak,” Lutz has documented hundreds of examples of the genre, including all those used in this article. He believes that doublespeak, while often amusing, is rarely unintentional and can be dangerous.

“This is language that is used by people who (understand its power) very well,” he said in an interview. “Words mean money.”

Take the popular “GI Joe” toy, for example. Contrary to appearances, Lutz said, “GI Joe” is not a doll, it is an “action figure”.

This has had two effects on sales. First, in much the same way that Miller Brewing Co. persuaded macho suds-swillers to drink diet beer by calling it “Lite”, little boys can play with “GI Joe” without playing with dolls.

But until a court ruled otherwise, it also allowed “GI Joe” to be imported without being subject to a 15% duty on dolls, he said.

Similarly, according to Lutz’ research, companies are making money by hawking such desirables as real counterfeit diamonds, previously distinguished cars, imported polyester, and vegetarian leather--otherwise known as vinyl.

The latest trend in doublespeak involves the public’s growing demand for environmentally friendly products, itself something of a doublespeak term.

Eastman Kodak Co., for example, produces a camera that, once used, is handed to a developer who takes the film out and throws the camera away.

But in this trash-conscious world, the camera is neither disposable nor a throwaway, Lutz said.

Kodak simply calls it a single-use camera.

It’s no longer 1984, but George Orwell would be proud.