Welcome to the first installment in what is likely to be a very sporadic series. As you've probably guessed by now, I have a tendency to be irrationally annoyed by small things, especially when it comes to medicines. Adverts for OTC meds can be a prolific source of cringes. Even leaving aside the requests for "you know, that one on the telly, where there is a guy and a dog and its a blue box", there will occasionally be a little phrase or image used in these adverts that makes me stop and seethe a little.
The current one at the moment, is Senokot. I can't find a link to the new advert, but when I do, I shall pop it in here so you can see for yourself.
There's all sorts of naturalistic fallacies going on, but that's not what annoys me the most. It's the phrase " works in harmony with your body" that i'm finding hard to stomach (geddit?)
Put simply, senna works by irritating your bowel. Your bowel notices that it is being hurt by something, therefore starts contracting and producing secretions to hastily get rid of the thing hurting it. This then might make you poo, but from your bowel's point of view that's a side issue- its just trying to protect itself from harm.
That doesn't really sound to me like "working in harmony". You might as well say that fire works in harmony with human skin to make you walk faster- in actual fact, one is just out to hurt the other, meaning something else happens as an unintended- but sometimes useful- consequence.
Hxxx
