Fill it ?

I suppose I should apologise for the pun in the title of this entry, but it seems too appropriate to miss.

This 'post' is not about verbal tricks or even pedantry. But is about communication of a sort, and a kind of trickery too.

I bought recently a packet of ‘2 natural fish fillets in crunchy breadcrumbs’, each fillet being 47% fish. I don’t complain about the percentage (actually, I think the fish percentage was probably higher than that). The crunchy breadcrumbs and batter were good enough, and (so the packet told me) contained no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives. So far, so good.

The cardboard packet, though, cheerfully depicting the goodies within, measures (it lies on my desk as I type) 23 x 15 x 3.5 centimetres, that is, 1,207.5 cu.cms . No weight was indicated on the box, and the two fillets, placed together, would have fitted easily into a box 18 x 11.5 x 2 cms, that is 414 cu.cms.

The capacity of the box, then, is almost 3 times the size of the contents.

To the producers, this is good sense: it helps - subliminally, perhaps - to sell the product. But the practice is (to borrow the terms that leading British politicians find themselves using so often nowadays) morally indefensible and totally unacceptable.

Fill it ?