Doublespeak. William Lutz

the distinction between direct and nonstop flights) is that you do not fly in an airplane or a jet plane or even an airliner. Sometimes you might fly in an aircraft, but far more often you fly in “equipment,” as in, “The equipment has arrived and is now being serviced prior to our beginning the preboarding process.” Or as in, “Ladies and gentlemen, because of a technical difficulty there will be a change of equipment. Will you please deplane at this time.” Of course, this last statement means the airplane is broken and won’t fly, so they have to get you off that plane and on another—if there’s some other “equipment” that works. If you want to know what kind of airplane you’ll be flying on this trip, just ask the ticket agent, “What’s the ‘equipment’ on this flight?” Without hesitation you’ll be told 727, L-1011, or something similar.

      The airlines, I am sure, think that the word “equipment” sounds much more solid, reliable, and far less frightening than the simple, common, ordinary word “airplane.” But to me, flying is scary enough without feeling that I’m not even going to be flying in an airplane but in a piece of equipment, which sounds like I’m going to be thirty-six thousand feet from the solid earth surrounded by old washing machine parts, pieces of a 1948 Hudson, and a few leftover manual typewriters. I don’t want to strap myself into a seat on the “equipment”; I want to sit in an airplane.

      Before you ever make it to the equipment, however, you must go through the “preboarding process,” as in, “Ladies and gentlemen, in a few minutes we will begin the preboarding process.” It’s not just preboarding; it’s a “preboarding process.” I live for the day when I will see someone actually “preboard the equipment.” I want to see someone board the airplane before boarding it, and I want to see the process someone has to go through in order to preboard.

      Airlines like to talk about “carry-on items,” not baggage, as in, “All carry-on items must fit conveniently beneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead compartments.” Airlines never speak of first-class passengers, but always of “passengers in the first-class section.” And did you ever notice that, while there may be a first-class section, there’s never a second-class section? You probably ride in the “coach” section, as I do. American Airlines has even eliminated the first-class section. On their planes it’s the “main cabin.” I wonder, where does that leaves the rest of us?

      The Doublespeak of Food

      Even if you don’t fly very often, you can still find plenty of doublespeak close to home. On your next trip to the grocery store—or supermarket, as they like to call them these days—pay attention to the language of food and the food business. Little things in this business try to mean a lot.

      Wegmans Food Markets in Rochester, New York advertised for “part-time career associate scanning professionals,” or what used to be called check-out clerks when I worked stocking shelves in a grocery store. Some of the clerks at the Pathmark supermarkets in New York wear nametags that list their job as “Price Integrity Coordinator.” What do they do? They check to make sure all the items in the store have the correct prices on them.

      Before you rush off to the store that’s open twenty-four hours a day, you’d better check its hours. The Pathmark supermarket chain in New York advertised in bold headlines that their stores were open twenty-four hours a day, but then in small print there was the note, “Check local store for exact hours.” There are supermarkets in Williamstown and North Adams, Massachusetts that advertise they are “Open 24 hours a day. Hours: 9 am to Midnight. Sundays 12 to 6.”

      In the food business, words mean money—your money. Use the right words, and people will pay more for the product. A study conducted by a Connecticut consumer research group a few years ago revealed that people were willing to pay 10 percent more for what they thought were natural foods. Almost 50 percent of the people interviewed approved of paying more for such foods. No one has ever accused the food industry of ignoring a trend, especially when it means making lots of money just by using a few meaningless words. An article in The New York Times Magazine for November 29, 1987, quotes William D. Parker, vice-president of meat merchandising for Kroger food stores, who was discussing the “natural” and “lite” or “light” beef products that have recently become hot items: “It’s a niche- market type item in upper-income areas where people have more money than sense,” he said.

      Put the magic words on the package and you can jack up the price, even if the contents aren’t all that much different from those in the package without the magic words. “Lean” is a magic word, as in “lean beef.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines “lean” red meat or poultry as having no more than 10 percent fat. Now, I know that I’m supposed to eat lean beef, as opposed to fat beef, I guess. If that’s true, why do cattle ranchers spend so much time and money fattening up their cattle before selling them to the slaughterhouses, or meat processors, as they like to call themselves? Why not start a diet program for cattle, so we’ll have nothing but lean beef? Why not have “fat farms” for cattle, where they can lose all their fat before they end up on our dinner tables?

      But the Department of Agriculture’s definition of “lean” does not apply to ground beef. In fact, the fat content of ground beef varies widely. The Center for Science in the Public Interest did a survey in 1988 and found that the fat content in “lean” ground beef ranged anywhere from 20 to 30 percent. Nor do you do any better with “extra lean” ground beef. The U.S. Department of Agriculture conducted a series of experiments in which they discovered that there was only one gram of fat difference between three and one-half ounces of cooked regular beef and the same amount of “extra lean” ground beef. And that single gram of fat (which is about one-twenty-eighth of an ounce) equals nine calories. For those nine fewer calories, you pay more for the extra-lean beef.

      The National Academy of Sciences issued a report in 1988 pointing out that terms such as “lean” and “lite” are misleading. “Extra lite” doesn’t guarantee reduced calories. Under Federal rules the term may simply refer to a product’s color, flavor, or texture. “Lean” frozen dinners may use meat and other ingredients containing large amounts of fat.

      While you may think you know what those magic words on food packages mean, you probably don’t, because those words have a special meaning that seems to be known only to the food manufacturers and the four government agencies that oversee food labeling and safety. For example, the word “enriched” means that vitamins, minerals, or protein have been added to the product, usually because these nutrients were eliminated from the food during processing. In other words, “enriched” simply means that the food is back where it started, nutritionally speaking, before it was processed. However, “fortified” means that vitamins, minerals, or proteins not originally removed or reduced during processing have been added as supplements, thus increasing the nutritional value the food had before it was processed.

      As you probably guessed, there’s an exception to these meanings of “enriched” and “fortified,” and that exception is flour. Almost all the flour sold in supermarkets today is labeled “enriched,” because flour can be called “enriched” if the iron, niacin, thiamine, and riboflavin that were removed during processing are replaced. However, the zinc, fiber, copper, and other vitamins and minerals that were removed during processing don’t have to be replaced. So you want to buy “fortified” flour, not “enriched” flour, but the other food you buy should be “enriched” not “fortified.” Got that? Just when you thought you had their definitions straight, they still manage to confuse you, don’t they?

      If you buy “dietetic” foods, you’d better be careful. According to current regulations, foods with such terms as “dietetic,” “diet,” “low calorie,” and “reduced calorie” on their labels must have either one-third fewer calories than the standard versions or fewer than 40 calories per 100-gram serving. The question, of course, is how many calories are in that standard version, whatever that may be. Moreover, some foods can be labeled “dietetic” and still have the same number of calories as the standard version, as long as they have a reduced sodium content. To top it all off, the calorie count on the label only has to be within 20 percent of the actual number of calories in the food. Thus, the frozen diet dinner that claims to contain only 200 calories can contain