--- title: Soft words for hard things: business and advertising and politics and government spin — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Soft words for hard things: business and advertising and politics and government spin», a lesson of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Companies hide extra costs, broken products and bad results behind soft words; po --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Euphemisms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/) / Soft words for hard things: business a… # Soft words for hard things: business and advertising and politics and government spin Lesson 23 of the euphemisms course of Mova's primary school: 22 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/0/) — Companies hide extra costs, broken products and bad results behind soft words; politicians hide taxes and untruths the same way. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/1/) — A "convenience fee" sounds like a favour, but it is simply an extra charge for paying the way the shop chose for you. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/2/) — Programmers joke that a bug is an "undocumented feature", and a firm that lost a fortune may call it "a learning experience". - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/3/) — In politics, someone caught saying something false may say they "misspoke", and a new tax can be called "revenue enhancement". - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/4/) — Ask what the plain word would be: a fee, a bug, a loss, a tax, a lie. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/5/) — "Convenience fee" means an extra charge for paying online or by card (US). - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/6/) — "Service charge" means an extra fee added to the bill (UK). - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/7/) — "New look, same great taste" can mean a smaller package for the same price. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/8/) — "Value" on a shop's own brand can mean cheap and of low quality. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/9/) — "Known issue" means a bug (a mistake in a computer program) that has not been fixed. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/10/) — "Undocumented feature" is a joking name for a software bug. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/11/) — "Sunsetting" means ending or discontinuing a product: the firm stops making or running it. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/12/) — "Legacy system" means old, outdated software. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/14/) — "A learning experience" often means an expensive failure. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/15/) — "Pivot" often means a change of plan because the first plan failed. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/16/) — "Headwinds" in business means problems that hurt sales. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/17/) — "Challenging trading conditions" means business is bad and losing money (UK). - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/18/) — "Dynamic pricing" means raising prices when demand is high, that is, when lots of people want to buy. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/20/) — "User fee" means a tax or charge for using a public service (US). - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/21/) — "Alternative facts" means falsehoods, things that are not true. - [23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/23/) — "Terminological inexactitude" is a joking name for a lie (UK). - [24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/23-fees-bugs-and-spin/24/) — "Economical with the truth" means lying or leaving out important facts (UK). - ← previous: [Soft words for hard things: work, firing and the economy and business and advertising](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/22-jobs-shops-and-estate-agents/) - next →: [Soft words for hard things: politics and government spin](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/24-government-spin/) - ↑ back to [Euphemisms](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/)