Lying with The Truth

Half a century ago I read a book called How to Lie with Statistics (by Darrell Huff, 1954), and ever since have been very skeptical about the way numbers are used to manipulate our thinking.  But increasingly we are seeing more and more devious distortion of language to try to sell us on a concept or a product.  It may have become most noticeable when people started using terms such as “defoliation” when they meant to say they killed every living thing in an area.   Then, students who were in need of remedial attention became “special” and those who were not became “gifted” as though we are not all special and gifted.  The janitors, whom I used to adore in grade school, became custodians while security guards became public safety workers, as though their work somehow became more valuable or more dignified as a result of simply changing the language.  

This trend seemed innocuous at first, but then the disingenuousness took over in the marketing and labeling of our food.  No longer were the giants of industry merely telling us that fake egg products were healthier than real eggs, or that margarine was better than butter, and using five different kinds of sweeteners so that sugar would no longer be seen at the top of the ingredients list of so many products.  Soon they adopted the scurrilous tactics of those sweepstakes promoters who write in large letters “You have won” when hidden somewhere else they go on to say that was just a “maybe” and you would have to give them your first born child to find out if it was true or not.

The food industry, in my opinion, should not run its campaigns like that, because once people have consumed a product and given it to their children to consume, it is too late to say “oops” and then go on as if nothing bad had happened.  When they say something is 100% juice and then define that as “reconstituted in water” I might look the other way, but when they slip in the word “natural” and then say it is 100% natural juice,  I subsequently become quite annoyed to find that the product is made from 1) water, 2) corn syrup, and then, finally 3) something that used to be juice.  Whatever they mean by natural, only they know, but in advertising it is clearly nothing more than a diversion.