Evasive terminology - Railways

Evasive terminology describes the way speakers are not straight or honest about what they say. President Clinton famously said he "did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." This may be technically true by some definitions (read an argument here) but for all practical purposes he was telling a lie. The words may be individually clear but this is by no means plain English.

When your girl friend asks "Did you go out with Ben" you could say no on the grounds that you just met up with him casually or say yes because you spent some time with him, depending on your interpretation of "go out with".

Insurance companies spend a great deal of energy being precise about the words they use to cover themselves, while defining the responsibilities very broadly for the claimant.

Letters to the Times (17th October 2008) discuss the way the Department for Transport has redefined overcrowding on trains in order to avoid criticism nd responsibility.

Michael Patterson points out that a new definition of overcrowding moves from the present 110 passengers per 100 seats to 130 passengers per hundred seats, thus "solving" the overcrowding problem at a stroke.

He refers to previous similar tricks:

"on time" or "punctual" can include trains that are up to ten minutes late, despite many passengers missing their connections.
"A train is not regarded as 'cancelled' if it has completed 50% of its journey, however many passengers are left stranded at stations on the rest of the route."

The railway industry now tends to use the word "crowding" rather than "overcrowding" in order to lessen the impact. It also refers to First Class but not to second class.

from Ask Jeeves
"During the Victorian era, most trains in the United Kingdom had three classes of accommodation: first class (for upper-class people), second class (for middle-class people), and Third Class (for working-class people).

From the 1870s onwards, second class (equivalent to either premium economy or business class) was gradually abolished, while first class and third class were retained. The reason that second class was abolished and third class retained was that the Railway Regulation Act 1844 required a third-class service to be offered.

In June 1956, third class was renamed "second class", which in turn was renamed "standard class" in the 1980s. A coach with accommodation for more than one class is called a "composite coach."

Similar tricks are used in other walks of life, where no-one can "fail" an examination (you are awarded a G grade); where there is a Big Mac - and Monster Mac and Mega Mac - but no normal or standard size; targets are readjusted rather than increased.

Can you find other examples where the language avoids telling the truth? Some examples will be of euphemism, where the truth is avoided because it is thought to be impolite (loo or washroom rather than toilet) but others are more blatant.

Read Animal Farm by George Orwell and identify the way in which the high moral code originally created for the animals to live by is subverted by changing or adding words - eg in Chapter 8, following the killing of some of the animals they notice that the original Commandment "no animal shall kill any other animal" had the words "without cause" added to it. Look carefully at the role of Squealer in persuading the animals.

Look also at the language of war and consider how politicians and servicemen deal with unpalatable topics and situations.
Consider the origin of "concentration camp" which originated in the Boer War and reached infamy with the Nazis in World War II.
Consider also the way English millionaire landowners evicted Scottish crofters over several centuries (continuing into the 1940's) in a process called "land improvement" by the landowners, "Highland Clearances" in most present day histories, but deserves to be described as "ethnic cleansing" to use another more descriptive term.