COUNTERFEIT
This has not been a good year for the American language! Bathroom plungers are no longer called bathroom plungers. The new phrase, devised by a company which makes them, is hydroforce blast cup. In Maryland, welfare applicants no longer meet with clerks. Now they check in with eligibility technicians. Bill collectors are now credit analysts, tour guides are destination advisers, and cemeteries now advertise pre-need arrangements. And if things weren’t bad enough already, word fiddlers are making them worse. Just about the time I thought I had figured out that a revenue enhancement actually meant a tax hike, they’ve changed the term to tax base erosion control. When we pulled our troops out of Lebanon two years ago, the Defense Department said we backloaded our augmentation personnel. Rolls Royce in England, unwilling to admit their cars break down like all the cars driven by commoners, admit that occasionally they fail to proceed. General Bernard Rogers, Allied Supreme Commander in Europe, referred to civilian…
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