Weasel words and half a PhD
Sunday, September 19th, 2010

Watchdog, BBC 1. A teenager has made a complaint to the programme about a mobile phone company’s use of the words ‘unlimited texts’ in their terms and conditions. It seems that the word ‘unlimited’ hits the buffers when 3,000 texts have been sent in one calendar month. The complainant had sent 3,500 and was now faced with a surcharge of £460. Or rather, his pale-faced father was. The mobile phone company weaselled away claiming ‘this exceeded their fair use’ policy, without defining what that policy was. So, how many texts do you need to send in one month? At around ten to fifteen words per text that is a total of 35,000 – 50,000 words per month. A PhD thesis averages 80,000 words. Hope he doesn’t get diagnosed with the RSI ‘Blackberry Thumb’.

