A wonderfully useful but completely meaningless phrase has popped out of corporate communications in the past few weeks: “deep clean”.
After every retail excursion by an escaped poisonous covid carrier, spokespeople have reassured us that the premises have been “deep cleaned”.
In one case it was a full week since the infected zombie had passed over the linoleum, and even the Ministry of Health felt obliged to say it wasn’t necessary. But the facility was ‘deep cleaned’ anyway.
Everyone knows ‘Deep clean’ is essentially meaningless. It is undefinable and of dubious benefit. But we don’t interrogate it because it is soothing. It’s verbal trickery to calm ourselves into carrying on.
Using it knowingly is great communications. Using it seriously is self-deception.