I originally posted this on the Weasle Word web site, but it seems apropos to this thread as well:

I think perhaps the whole ‘cult of the euphemism’, so to speak, is a logical off-shoot of the pervasive practice, in western societies, to intentionally obfuscate the truth. Commercials are full of such obfuscations, visually, verbally, and textually. The language used by politicians is another example. It’s no wonder that corporate minions jump into the game with their euphemistic white-noise. Like Plato’s ‘Philosopher King’, anyone in political or corporate ‘power’ think that they, and whoever is holding their leash, are superior to everyone below them and can therefore freely obfuscate the truth and lie to achieve whatever corporate, and more often personal, goals they may have.

Corporate-babble also establishes a kind of code that is used by those who feel they are part of an inner-circle to create an air of exclusivity. It is also used by those who want to be part of the inner-circle of which they perceive others to be a member. Team players speak the babble.

What I have yet to understand is how someone can look another person squarely in the eye and obviously obfuscate the truth and lie, and fully expect the other person to believe them, as if the other person owes it to them to believe whatever they say, however obvious an obfuscation or lie it may be.

Sadly, there are far too many people willing to believe whatever is thrown their way, which, in turn, begins to give the obfuscations and lies a certain validity. The more people there are who believe in an obfuscation and lie, the more such things look like the truth, and the less they are questioned. Forty million gullible people can’t be wrong.

“No other pain reliever is proven to be more effective.”