Thread: Mealy words.
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Old 04-16-2008, 07:36 AM
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Location: North Australia
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Mealy words.

I came across two examples of words which confuse or don't mean what they say, both from the Oz ABC, supposed to be our best.

The first, "Mr Hatzistergos is pushing for lawyers to be forced to refuse to engage in harassing questioning of victims." was bad enough, the worst of lawyer speak, but the second just plain wasn't.

"Some years ago, there was incorrectly a claim that an independent retailer was watering down fuel with ethanol," he said. "In fact, it was something different and that gave ethanol a bad name."

How do you water down the fuel with ethanol for god's sake? You water down stuff with water, while you pollute, adulterate or anything but water down.

Do you have any examples of this?
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