Who Needs English?

If I could only have one thing to piss me off about linguistic change, it would be that foisted upon us by business in the hopes of making another nickel a year. Target and Chik-Fil-A don't have customers any more, they have "guests" who they continue to treat as customers. My local public transit agency no longer has passengers; it, too, has customers, whom nobody in the agency treats as customers because, transportation conditions in the area being what they are, there will always be customer/passengers. So the agency (and, importantly, its employees) has no incentive to be anything but autocratic.

In the same vein is the "free gift" offer. I don't know for sure but I imagine there were unscrupulous assholes who offered gifts and then charged for them with the excuse that "free" was never stipulated. Never mind that it's inherent in the concept of "gift"; this is the world of business we're talking about, and only egregious misconduct is permitted to interfere with profit-making.

So of course this should be no surprise whatsoever. If a "gift" need not be free, why should a "free" item be, either?

Orwell had it wrong. Doublespeak won't be the creation of government. (Lord knows government engages in it with abandon, but it's also pretty transparent because it's expected.)