Zemblan Grammar

In addition to my fondness for complaining about teaching, I also take great pleasure in complaining about my second job, the glorious, storied bank.  Loyal readers may recall my series on wacky financial lingo from this summer.  Well, just before I left for my vacation, I had to undergo another training day through the new company that handles our credit insurance.  We were taught how to explain the insurance’s features and benefits by using “bridging statements” like this:  “[Feature], which means/so/therefore [Benefit].”  Here is an example:  “Rates are the same for all age groups, which means everyone pays the same.”  Are you fucking kidding me? It’s bad enough that we should have to make such an explanation in the first place, even if the customer is an utter turnip-brain, as so many of them are.  The worst bit is that they think their employees are so illiterate that we don’t know how to express causality without a special workshop and power-point presentation depicting the subordinating conjunctions marching jauntily across little cartoon bridges.