From a press release about networking kit:
Specifically developed to deliver a high level of performance
Does that mean the other stuff is specifically developed so it *doesn’t* deliver a high level of performance?
Things I don’t understand, part 2031
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I suppose you could say that other stuff might be developed with different primary goals, such as economy, or ease of manufacture, and when these conflict with performance, the other is given primacy. So I’m sure that VW engineers do their best to make the 1.1 litre Polo perform as well as it can, given that VW mostly want to sell it to price-conscious small people: whereas the engineers at Porsche or Ferrari pretty much know that whatever they propose will get the go-ahead if it increases performance, regardless of effect on price, fuel-efficiency, etc. (The Ferrari F1 had a list price of hundreds of thousands and was sold out before they had even built one, if I recall correctly.)
But it’s true that a lot of marketing speak is a bit of a truism, or raises uncomfortable questions. (“So it’s new and improved, is it? That means the old one was a bit shit, doesn’t it?”)
Funny you should mention “new and improved” – I was thinking about this the other day (there’s not much mental stimulation in the checkout queue at a supermarket) and noticed that some healthy soy yoghurt thing had “IMPROVED TASTE” on the label. To me that means “it was shit before, and it’s marginally less shit now”. Surely it’d be more effective if the label said “even better flavour!” or “Fucking hell! We’ve outdone ourselves with this one! Prepare for mouthgasm!”
Sorry about the language :)