Building a Better Vocabulary The GM Way

We learned that General Motors (before it was Wingnuttia’s Government Motors) was trying to coach its engineers to use clear language when describing problems issues with their cars.

The phrases were among 69 in a PowerPoint presentation the company used in 2008 to train engineers in using careful, impartial language to describe vehicle issues. It was attached to an agreement the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reached Friday with GM, in which the automaker would pay $35 million in fines to end an investigation into recall delays.

While some now wonder if this is a violation of the GM engineers inalienable right of Freedom of Speech, we applaud the GM brass for putting in writing what they wanted no one to put in writing. This is why they are management and we are not.

As we  at Liberaland are all about words, for your edification here are some words that apparently were used to describe GM cars by GM engineers. These words are to be avoided (alpha-sorted for your convenience), and we helpfully explain why:

• Apocalyptic – should only be used to describe Francis Ford Coppola movies, or if Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert ever appear on stage together again.
• Band-Aid – trademarked by the Johnson & Johnson corporation, and we don’t want to infringe on their trademarks anymore than we would want them to infringe on ours. Imagine if they called Tucks a Bel Air.
• Challenger – besides the space shuttle, also the name of a competitor’s car. Let’s not give them any free publicity, shall we?
• Cobain – hasn’t had a hit in years; let’s not associate our brands with has-beens.
• Corvair-like – We will never forgive Ralph. Never.
• Decapitating – Marketing prefers we say, “You’ll lose your head over the new models.”
• Grenadelike – Only to be used by GM’s military division.
• Hindenberg – We stopped advertising on the Limbaugh show.
• Impaling – This is clearly a typo. Impala is the correct spelling.
• Rolling sarcophagus (tomb or coffin) – Only for after-market alterations on Caddies.
• Spontaneous combustion – The engine division prefers internal combustion.
• Titanic – Marketing nixed this name after the competition named a vehicle The Armada. We lead, we never follow.
• Words or phrases with biblical connotation – We are secular, let’s not offend our friends of other faiths.

By: Tengrain

Fully caffeinated with twice the sugar, unabashedly liberal. Award-winning Americans United blogger, blogs at Mock Paper Scissors, and sometimes at Crooks and Liars.

You can follow @Tengrain on Twitter, or you might see him enjoying coffee somewhere in Seattle at any given moment of the day.