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"Cleaning up". Really? When companies say "cleaning up" they are trying to convey the idea that their environmental disaster is a bit like spilling milk in the
by andrewstuart 4y ago
"Cleaning up". Really? When companies say "cleaning up" they are trying to convey the idea that their environmental disaster is a bit like spilling milk in the kitchen. Sure it's unfortunate, but all will be fine after it's "cleaned up".
Just needs a bit of a wipe down and a mop and all good.
- mtmail 4y agoWhat would be a better word/phrase in this case?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- agilob 4y agodisaster recovery process?
- uoaei 4y agoContaminant/hazard/whatever mitigation
- jdmtheNth 4y agoRemediation is the word environmental cleanup companies often use. Essentially just removing the top ten or fifteen feet of soil and saying "all clean". Interestingly, all a company needs to do to demonstrate that an area is clean is provide x number of groundwater samples that show clean. What officials ignore is that there might be forty or fifty not-clean samples that are ignored in favour of the, say, five clear samples required. Dirty stuff.
- chucksta 4y agolittle bit of a sprucing /s
- tokai 4y agoWhat a weird and inconsequential thing to take offense by. Nothing in the term 'cleaning up' insinuates that it will be fine or that its not a big deal. What you really should be angry over is the spill, not that after-the-fact communication.
- AdamN 4y agoOP is agreeing with you. "Cleaning up" is a euphemism we should move beyond. At best, they are "mitigating" the spill and that's probably the word the media should use.
- tokai 4y agoNo OP and I are not agreeing. Cause its not a euphemism. They are cleaning up their spill. Will it make everything like before? No. But that doesn't makes the term an euphemism. The other ideas in this thread are more newspeak by a longshot.
- AdamN 4y ago"Cleaning Up" when compared to spilled milk like the OP says implies that it will be the way it was before. The term is more positive than the reality so I would personally call it a euphemism.
- tokai 4y agoThats all on your and OPs own feelings of the term. Something being cleaned up will never be mint again. So you could just a well argue that 'cleaning up' points to something being permanently degraded. In the end loose semantic associations are not universal and OPs critique is a personal emotional response that removes focus from the actual problem here.
- corbulo 4y agoI can assure you that word choice is not arbitrary in a shitshow as large as this. Its PR Crisis management 101. Word choice means everything because it can be the difference in accountability. I guarantee you they are hoping for said effect on the 'audience'/public.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
- _heimdall 4y agoI was interning at Exxon during the BP oil spill. Back then there was all the same talk about cleanup, but at the end of the day "cleanup" amounted to Exxon quietly recommending a coagulation agent that bound the oil into small globs and sunk it under the surface. If I remember right the oil globs would sink something like 10-15 feet, just enough that you'd see less oil oil on the surface. I also had family on the Alabama gulf coast at the time. They were finding globs of oil on the beach for a few years after "everything was cleaned up"
- legitster 4y agoFor the record, the term "cleaning up" was only used in this article. The official term Norfolk Southern used in their press releases was "monitor and mitigate environmental issues" which does seem more accurate.
- solarkraft 4y agoThis too sounds a tad euphemistic to me.
- grapesurgeon 4y ago[dead]