When I was a young copywriter, I wrote about a catalytic converter that was just newly introduced to Volkswagen. I proudly wrote that it “removes all harmful substances.” The copy came back. I was told to say that it “largely reduces the amount of “ a list of strangely named substances. I said I would never subject the poor Volkswagen customers to such nonsense. I then was called to Wolfsburg and had a meeting with a gruff engineer. He said: “Look, that thing lowers the amount of some bad stuff. But it lets stuff through, it may even create stuff that is much worse. It’s just that nobody is looking for it!” (Read More…)