In war or business, weasel words come back to bite you



I once sat down with a major American movie star who wanted to do a television show.

Well, he wasn't so major when I sat down with him. By the time a movie star finds himself sitting across from me in the lounge at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel, he's pretty much come to the end of his feature film career and, often, his money.

He began the meeting by informing me that he didn't really want to do television and planned, if the show was a hit, to break his contract at the soonest opportunity. He then spent the next 30 minutes texting and talking on the phone, got up abruptly and walked out.

"OK," said his manager, when he called me an hour later to apologise, "I think we can all agree that the first meeting was sub-optimal."

"Sub-optimal?" I asked. "That's the nicest possible way to put it."

"I like to put things in the most positive way," he said. "Let's leave it at this: magic didn't happen."

"It certainly didn't," I said.

"But maybe it can happen the next time you meet?" he added, his voice rising in a tone.

It didn't happen the next time we met, mostly because there wasn't a next time. There are enough terrific actors who want to be on television that it's inefficient to waste time trying to convince the ones who don't.

But those phrases stuck with me - "sub-optimal" and "magic didn't happen" - because they were new euphemisms in a business that seems to coin them every day.

In Hollywood, we have elaborate euphemisms for every kind of unpleasant outcome. Writers who have been sacked are said to have "left the project" and starlets with addiction problems are reported as "being treated for dehydration".

It's fun, of course, to tut-tut and tsk-tsk the euphemisers in Hollywood for refusing to call things what they really are - the reputation we have worldwide, and it's a fair one, is of a viper's pit of liars - but there isn't an industry or a large organisation around that doesn't prefer the orotund, roundabout way to deliver the news.

Fighter jets flying into Libyan airspace, probably at this very moment, might sound to some of us like an old fashioned war. I'm pretty sure it seems that way to the people on the ground, hearing the whistle of the bombs as they fall. I bet they're calling it a war. Even Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, mad as he is, knows a war when he sees one.

But if you're President Barack Obama, you call it a "kinetic military action", which is about as silly and uninformative a phrase as any president has come up with, ever since Richard Nixon and his staff decided to release certain details of their ill-doings and withhold the important stuff in what they called a "modified limited hangout".

"Kinetic military action" is the kind of phrase a person uses when they don't want to use the "w" word - "war" - or the "W" name - George W Bush. But the problem with euphemisms, in government and business, is that they're just delaying the moment when they eventually need to be clarified.

This week, Mr Obama made some linguistic adjustments. It wasn't a "kinetic military action" but a "time-limited, scope-limited military action". All of this complicated parsing came to a head when he spoke to the nation on Tuesday night and did his best to define what all these weasel words mean. In the end, he never really used the "w" word. But he did sound an awful lot like W.

Near the end of his speech, he added an odd little phrase. "I refused to wait," he said, "for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action."

For the images? What about, um, the actual stuff?

And that, really, is the trouble with euphemisms like "kinetic military action" or "magic didn't happen". They lull people into a dreamy-dream world, where if certain things aren't said - there will be no profits from this motion picture; there's a war going on in Libya; your actor client is insane - they somehow aren't happening.

Euphemisms are fine when they're doing what they were designed for: conveying unpalatable information about bodily functions and/or romantic acrobatics in a socially acceptable and inoffensive way. But when they're employed to avoid the awkwardness of real missiles flying in the real air, or real humanitarian disasters happening on the real ground, well, then, best to put them away and call a war a war.

In his speech this week, Mr Obama sounded less like a president and more like that desperate manager I spoke to. And that, as they say, is very sub-optimal.

Rob Long is a writer and producer based in Hollywood

FROM%20THE%20ASHES
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THE SPECS

      

 

Engine: 1.5-litre

 

Transmission: 6-speed automatic

 

Power: 110 horsepower 

 

Torque: 147Nm 

 

Price: From Dh59,700 

 

On sale: now  

 
Tips for taking the metro

- set out well ahead of time

- make sure you have at least Dh15 on you Nol card, as there could be big queues for top-up machines

- enter the right cabin. The train may be too busy to move between carriages once you're on

- don't carry too much luggage and tuck it under a seat to make room for fellow passengers

Other workplace saving schemes
  • The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
  • Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
  • National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
  • In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
  • Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
The Sand Castle

Director: Matty Brown

Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea

Rating: 2.5/5

The specs
Engine: 77.4kW all-wheel-drive dual motor
Power: 320bhp
Torque: 605Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh219,000
On sale: Now
Top Hundred overseas picks

London Spirit: Kieron Pollard, Riley Meredith 

Welsh Fire: Adam Zampa, David Miller, Naseem Shah 

Manchester Originals: Andre Russell, Wanindu Hasaranga, Sean Abbott

Northern Superchargers: Dwayne Bravo, Wahab Riaz

Oval Invincibles: Sunil Narine, Rilee Rossouw

Trent Rockets: Colin Munro

Birmingham Phoenix: Matthew Wade, Kane Richardson

Southern Brave: Quinton de Kock

What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women & the Food That Tells Their Stories
Laura Shapiro
Fourth Estate

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

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If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.

When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.

How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
The story in numbers

18

This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens

450,000

More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps

1.5 million

There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m

73

The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association

18,000

The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme

77,400

The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study

4,926

This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee

Paatal Lok season two

Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy 

Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong

Rating: 4.5/5

Sri Lanka-India Test series schedule

 

  • 1st Test India won by 304 runs at Galle
  • 2nd Test Thursday-Monday at Colombo
  • 3rd Test August 12-16 at Pallekele
Ferrari
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Vidaamuyarchi

Director: Magizh Thirumeni

Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra

Rating: 4/5

 

Cryopreservation: A timeline
  1. Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
  2. Ovarian tissue surgically removed
  3. Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
  4. Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
  5. Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
The specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylturbo

Transmission: seven-speed DSG automatic

Power: 242bhp

Torque: 370Nm

Price: Dh136,814

MATCH STATS

Wolves 0

Aston Villa 1 (El Ghazi 90 4' pen)

Red cards: Joao Moutinho (Wolves); Douglas Luiz (Aston Villa)

Man of the match: Emi Martinez (Aston Villa)

How to avoid crypto fraud
  • Use unique usernames and passwords while enabling multi-factor authentication.
  • Use an offline private key, a physical device that requires manual activation, whenever you access your wallet.
  • Avoid suspicious social media ads promoting fraudulent schemes.
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  • Critically assess whether a project’s promises or returns seem too good to be true.
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: ARDH Collective
Based: Dubai
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Sector: Sustainability
Total funding: Self funded
Number of employees: 4
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
 
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
 
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Power: 510hp at 9,000rpm
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Price: From Dh801,800
The specs

Engine: 3-litre twin-turbo V6

Power: 400hp

Torque: 475Nm

Transmission: 9-speed automatic

Price: From Dh215,900

On sale: Now

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COMPANY PROFILE

Company name: Letstango.com

Started: June 2013

Founder: Alex Tchablakian

Based: Dubai

Industry: e-commerce

Initial investment: Dh10 million

Investors: Self-funded

Total customers: 300,000 unique customers every month

German intelligence warnings
  • 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
  • 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
  • 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250 

Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution