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Comment by DebbieNicespeak | Hacker News Reader

Hi all, I'm the person who wrote this. Thanks for this unexpected trip down memory lane, which is also an insight into how things have changed. Remember I wrote this more than 20 years ago when scripted service of any kind was new in the UK, and we really didn't interact with websites much or chatbots at all. Mission statements and suchlike were also fairly new, especially in public institutions.Evidently familiarity has made us more accepting of some things but even less so of others, as you'd expect. Anyway,it was fun reading the comments,so thanks and have a nice day

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Now I'm wondering if the study of insincerity has become a recognized academic field. It would seem to be inherently cross-disciplinary, with elements of psychology, sociology and politics, in addition to the linguistic aspect.

Ah yes, so that we can have graduates get B.S. in BS

Hi Debbie,

Amazing to read a response from you. As someone who's been working in marketing & Tech, I have to say that many things have indeed changed, except for the worse. Whereas before we've had an incipient Nicespeak phenomenon, I've noticed it grow larger and larger in various respects.

For what it is worth, I've learned about your article from Madeleine Bunting's "Willing Slaves" book [0], which I'm reading now and felt the need to read it in its entirety (edit: the article, that is); luckily Archive.org had it preserved for us.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/793071

> thanks and have a nice day

I’m choosing to read this as a wry nod to the present-day pervasiveness of nicespeak.

If you were asked to provide guidance for companies who wished to avoid using nicespeak, what recommendations would you provide? And do you have advice for situations where a company might want to emphasise/de-emphasise aspects of the truth to market itself?

Hi Debbie, given you were at New Statesman, I am wondering if you had a chance to meet and interact with Christopher Hitchens? And if so, if you have an idea of what he would think about this subject?

What has changed? I would have guessed this article was written in 2017 at the earliest.

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