SED 17: Washing Out The Meaning

[kerravonsen]

This morning I washed my hair with anti-dandruff shampoo. The bottle said "antidandruff medicated shampoo". Ooooh, medicated! Does that mean it's different from other anti-dandruff shampoos?

To the dictionary, Robin!

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:

  Medicate \Med"i*cate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Medicated}; p. pr. &
     vb. n. {Medicating}.] [L. medicatus, p. p. of medicare,
     medicari. See {Medicable}.]
     1. To tincture or impregnate with anything medicinal; to
        drug. ``Medicated waters.'' --Arbuthnot.
  
     2. To treat with medicine.

So, to say it's "medicated" means.... it's a treatment. For dandruff. Which is what "anti-dandruff" means.
Holy tautology, Batman, it's a tautology!

I loathe advertising-speak. So long as they are not outright lying, they can be as deceptive as they want, tossing in feel-good content-free words with abandon, or rendering perfectly good words content-free by using them as a tautology.

I prefer spades to be called spades, not agricultural real-metal-bladed natural-wooden-handled spades.