A lawsuit waiting to happen

Jim Ledbetter of Fortune writes on its Browser technology blog about CNBC‘s slogan and wonders whether the business news cable network is inviting a lawsuit.

Ledbetter wrote, “Playing off the bad joke that is the Fox News Channel’s ‘fair and balanced’ motto, CNBC has been running ads touting its coverage as ‘unbiased.’ Leaving aside whether you find that claim plausible – or even interesting – the actual full slogan is that CNBC provides ‘fast, accurate, actionable and unbiased business news’.

“Perhaps we are on the crest of a new semantic wave, but does CNBC – a division of General Electric – really want to refer to its coverage as ‘actionable’? Every dictionary I have consulted uses as the primary definition for ‘actionable’ some variation of ‘providing grounds for a lawsuit.’ In fact, I can find only one dictionary that even includes a definition akin to the one I assume CNBC intends, i.e., leading to an action, or capable of being acted upon.

“I suppose this is nitpicking, but as an editor it is my job to spot and (I hope!) weed out unintended ambiguities. And I’m hardly alone in insisting that, really, the legal meaning is the only meaning of the word actionable, and all other uses are unfortunate corporate malapropisms.”

Read more here.