# Asinine disclaimers in commercials **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 24, 2012, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698 "2012-10-24T03:48:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Blind\_Guardian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df705f/32.png) [@Blind\_Guardian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blind_Guardian)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2012, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/61 "2012-10-26T02:57:07Z")
I once saw a series of warnings on a Stanley hammer that I wish I’d taken a picture of. Among other things, it warns you to never strike another object with the hammer. It’s a particularly amusing example of legal CYA in a litigious society that the warnings tell you outright not to use the tool for its very purpose for existence. The manufacturer has absolved itself of any responsibility for any consequences that might stem from actually using their hammer to strike an object, rather than, say, using it as a hammer-shaped paperweight. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2012, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/62 "2012-10-26T16:08:04Z")
Not exactly on point, but within the spirit of the thread: At work we have a shelf of reference books. Someone was told by the higher-ups to place a sticker on each book with a disclaimer. Each handwritten sticker says, “for reference only”. I guess I can’t use one to swat a fly, then. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/63 "2012-10-26T16:53:02Z")
What amuses me about the “Professional driver on closed course” is that, at least two-thirds of the time, he isn’t doing anything especially dangerous. He’s driving the car around a gentle curve in the road, or pulling up to a traffic light on a (strangely empty) city street. Half the time, they just speed up the footage to make it _look_ like he’s haulin’ ass with reckless abandon, when in reality he’s probably driving at a perfectly sedate pace. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/64 "2012-10-26T17:07:00Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > What amuses me about the “Professional driver on closed course” is that, at least two-thirds of the time, he isn’t doing anything especially dangerous. He’s driving the car around a gentle curve in the road, or pulling up to a traffic light on a (strangely empty) city street. Half the time, they just speed up the footage to make it _look_ like he’s haulin’ ass with reckless abandon, when in reality he’s probably driving at a perfectly sedate pace. I always decide that means that the car in question is so poorly engineered that it should not be driven by the average person and only driven on closed courses. One less for me to worry about in my purchase decisions. It also means that any of the really fancy stuff they claim the car can do is a lie - or is only possible to do under controlled circumstances (exceptionally well spaced vehicles for that parallel parking thing) and is therefore useless in a real world scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/65 "2012-10-26T19:41:38Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I like the ad that the French drug mfg. (Boiron) runs for oscillicium (did I get that right)? It is a homeopathic medicine that is supposed to help you to avoid getting the flu. Only the package carries the disclaimer:’ Not intended to diagnose or treat any disease. These claims have not been verified/tested." That’s known as the [Quack Miranda Warning](http://whitecoatunderground.com/quack-miranda-warning-2/). In its more comprehensive form it goes: _“These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”_ The idea is to sell you pretend drugs while skating around FDA requirements for selling actual drugs. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/66 "2012-10-26T20:00:34Z")
> [@Surly\_Chick](#): > > I once bought a garden gnome as a gift and the sticker on the bottom said, “Not a Food Product.” Really? Is there a land where people eat garden gnomes? Discworld. \* My fave “cape does not allow user to fly”. \*\*‘But there’s some big mushrooms under it. Can you eat them?’ Rincewind looked at them cautiously. They were, indeed, very big, and had red and white spotted caps. They were in fact a variety that the local shaman (who at this point was some miles away, making friends with a rock) would only eat after first attaching one leg to a large stone with a rope. There was nothing for it but to go out in the rain and look at them. He knelt down in the leafmould and peered under the cap. After a while he said weakly, ‘No, no good to eat at all.’ ‘Why?’ called Twoflower. ‘Are the gills the wrong shade of yellow?’ ‘No, not really . . .’ ‘I expect the stems haven’t got the right kind of fluting, then.’ ‘They look okay, actually.’ ‘The cap, then, I expect the cap is the wrong colour,’ said Twoflower. ‘Not sure about that.’ ‘Well then, why can’t you eat them?’ Rincewind coughed. It’s the little doors and windows,’ he said wretchedly, ‘it’s a dead giveaway.’….. Twoflower and Rincewind were arguing. The person they were arguing about sat on his mushroom and watched them with interest. He looked like someone who smelled like someone who lived in a mushroom, and that bothered Twoflower. ‘Well, why hasn’t he got a red hat?’ Rincewind hesitated, desperately trying to imagine what Twoflower was getting at. ‘What?’ he said, giving in. ‘He should have a red hat,’ said Twoflower. ‘And he certainly ought to be cleaner and more, more sort of jolly. He doesn’t look like any sort of gnome to me.’ ‘What are you going on about?’ ‘Look at that beard,’ said Twoflower sternly. ‘I’ve seen better beards on a piece of cheese.’ ‘Look, he’s six inches high and lives in a mushroom,’ snarled Rincewind. ‘Of course he’s a bloody gnome.’ …. Red hats! He wondered whether to enlighten the tourist about what life was really like when a frog was a good meal, a rabbit hole a useful place to shelter out of the rain, and an owl a drifting, silent terror in the night. Moleskin trousers sounded quaint unless you personally had to remove them from their original owner when the vicious little sod was cornered in his burrow. As for red hats, anyone who went around a forest looking bright and conspicuous would only do so very, very briefly. He wanted to say: look, the life of gnomes and goblins is nasty, brutish and short. So are they.\*"The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2012, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/67 "2012-10-26T22:17:46Z")
This really doesn’t qualify as a disclaimer since I saw it years ago on an educational poster for grade school children on how to care for their dogs or cats. It was for the most part a typical school poster that featured colorful pictures of dogs and cats along with sensible and expected advice to regularly feed your pet, provide them with water, brush them, etc. However, in the middle of the text and seemingly apropos of nothing came this bit of instruction: _“Do not put rubberbands around your cat or dog’s neck.”_ I remember seeing that when I was about ten and trying hard to suppress the inappropriate laughter that was building up inside me. I felt horribly guilty about finding it funny but I couldn’t help it. Was this such a big problem that Scholastic (or whatever educational publishing company that was responsible for the poster) felt the need to print this obvious bit of advice? Granted, I was pretty young at the time but I never had the urge to put a rubberband around Spot or Fluffy’s neck. ---
**Author:** ![Indygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/68 "2012-10-27T03:36:33Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I like the ad that the French drug mfg. (Boiron) runs for oscillicium (did I get that right)? It is a homeopathic medicine that is supposed to help you to avoid getting the flu. Only the package carries the disclaimer:’ Not intended to diagnose or treat any disease. These claims have not been verified/tested." > So I guess dropping $18.00 for a box of this crap is throwing your money away. Seeing how homeopathy is a bunch of hooey, it is most definitely a waste of money. Those products don’t even have a measurable amount of active ingredient. It’s basically water or sugar pills. I’ll never understand how it’s legal to put that stuff next to real medication. But I digress… My favorite disclaimer was on one of those looping towel thingies they used to have in public bathrooms sometimes. The warning said, “Do not insert head into loop.” Funny shit. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/69 "2012-10-27T14:08:40Z")
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned the fast talking disclaimers you hear on radio ads these days. I remember in the 80’s that was just a novelty. [John Moschitta](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeK5ZjtpO-M) Now it’s a freaking profession. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/70 "2012-10-27T15:01:02Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Found on plastic bags everywhere - “This bag is not a toy.” That’s just sad, really - it always makes me imagine households where a plastic bag _is_ considered a toy. I recently was handed a bag where “Bag is not a toy.” was typeset huge-- larger than the name of the store. I sounded disappointed, and asked the clerk: “Ohhh, this one says it’s not a toy. Do you suppose I could get a bag that IS a toy?” ---
**Author:** ![Coustralee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Coustralee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coustralee)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/71 "2012-10-27T15:19:37Z")
we have one of those fibre optic christmas trees that you plug in, on the box it says something like: "do not operate while in box’ I was looking at a buddha statue recently, i lifted it up expecting it to have a made in china sticker… but it had a sticker on the centre of the bottom 'to clean, wipe with damp cloth" ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/72 "2012-10-27T17:15:35Z")
“This coffee is hot” is propaganda. They make the warning as ridiculous as they can get away with to perpetuate the Liebeck Lie. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/73 "2012-10-27T18:37:22Z")
On QI there was an item about a Swedish “delicacy”, which is some sort of fish that has a very small amount of salt in it (not enough to preserve it ), that is allowed to rot until it ferments. (Advice is that its best to open it underwater because the stench is so awful) On the can it has a "best before date ". I seem to recall from somewhere bottled water also having a BBD. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/74 "2012-10-27T19:28:53Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > On QI there was an item about a Swedish “delicacy”, which is some sort of fish that has a very small amount of salt in it (not enough to preserve it ), that is allowed to rot until it ferments. > > (Advice is that its best to open it underwater because the stench is so awful) > > On the can it has a "best before date ". > > I seem to recall from somewhere bottled water also having a BBD. > **[Lutefisk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk)** > > Lutefisk (Norwegian, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}pronounced \[ˈlʉ̂ːtfɛsk\] in Northern and parts of Central Norway, \[ˈlʉ̂ːtəˌfɪsk\] in Southern Norway; Swedish: lutfisk \[ˈlʉ̂ːtfɪsk\]; Finnish: lipeäkala \[ˈlipeæˌkɑlɑ\]; literally "lye fish") is dried whitefish, usually cod, but sometimes ling or burbot, cured in lye. It is made from ... ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/75 "2012-10-27T19:39:33Z")
> [@Coustralee](#): > > …I was looking at a buddha statue recently, i lifted it up expecting it to have a made in china sticker.. but it had a sticker on the centre of the bottom 'to clean, wipe with damp cloth" Wait… all these years of arduously trying to understand the mystery that is Zen, the innumerable treks to that one particular mountain outside Katmandu, and I could’ve taken care of it with a quick “wipe with damp cloth”? And, just so’s I actually add something to the discussion, I’ve got a friend who shows everyone his can of Mixed Nuts which has the dire warning: _“May Contain Nuts”_. ---
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/76 "2012-10-27T19:46:19Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > [Lutefisk - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk) Actually, I think it was [Surstromming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming), which is somehow even grosser than lutefisk. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/77 "2012-10-27T20:53:23Z")
In a slightly different vein, this is a little disturbing: There is a notation on my box of Mini-Wheats cereal that says “Made Of 100% Recycled Pasteboard.” That’s certainly what it tastes like, but I’m surprised that they would be so upfront about it. ---
**Author:** ![bathsheba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@bathsheba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bathsheba)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2012, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/78 "2012-10-28T06:24:24Z")
There is an ad on here for a set of dolls in which the dolls are set up in various scenes with a VoiceOver simulating interaction between the dolls. Standard dolly advert, yes. The disclaimer? “Dolls do not actually talk”. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/79 "2012-10-28T18:37:26Z")
My protein powder container proclaims how it’s product can “help trim body fat”, etc.; yet in small wording at the bottom of the containter, it also says, “Do not use this product for weight reduction.” Um, that’s slicing the apple pretty thin, don’t ya think? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2012, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698/80 "2012-10-28T19:38:36Z")
> [@Meyer6](#): > > Actually, I think it was [Surstromming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming), which is somehow even grosser than lutefisk. Yep, thats the one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/asinine-disclaimers-in-commercials/638698.md?page=5)