Free

"Sign up now, and receive a free trip to the Bahamas – absolutely free."

Free is a simple word. We all know what free means. Very little is free today, but advertisers bombard us with the F word. There are always thousands of schemes afoot to offer something completely free — provided you pay, that is.

When we hear the pitch, most of us understand that it would be impossible for a company to actually give free trips to an entire nation, so we’re already conditioned to digest the word in a way that contradicts what we've always known free to mean. We no longer get excited at the sound of it. We are wary. We have learned that "free" is pretty much guaranteed to cost something.

But that’s not the precise point. The point is that no dictionary defines free as something you get only if you pay for something else. The point is that free is no longer a trustworthy term. The point is that for someone's financial gain, it’s apparently quite legal to distort an official language and a basic tool of communication to lure gullible buyers. And if the ploy works, then it’s fair to say that advertisers wield the power to befuddle consumer logic and to perpetuate linguistic ignorance.

I’m annoyed by this. There is nothing wrong with the word "included" or the phrase "at no extra cost". And for reasons I don’t understand, advertisers are not compelled by law to use those truthful, more accurate terms. Government might work to prevent false or misleading advertising in this country, but how is it that free, used with such open dupery, is legal? When I hear "free" stated in a commercial, I’m offended because it's usually a blatant lie. Free with strings attached is not free. It insults the intelligence of normal people who are forced to hear it and read it again and again in the course of daily living.

The arbitrary twisting of free only brings unwanted murkiness to the repertoire of words we rely on to express ourselves each day. As if it's not enough that lawsuits abound over semantics and that wars are waged over misunderstandings, businesses can shamelessly pilfer and corrupt a perfectly good word with clear intent to pervert its meaning. There is no substitute for free that occupies so little space and works with such efficiency. As adjectives go, it has been as powerful a word as good or big. Today free is in the throes of destruction because laws allow industry to toy with it. To counteract the confusion advertisers have created, it is now necessary to bloat sentences with extra words just to make it clear when free actually DOES mean free, for example:

"Stop by for free coffee. No purchase is necessary."

The second sentence is completely redundant. At least it was redundant until assurance became necessary, thanks to those who created this predicament.

What can be done? I’ve personally written to the office of Consumer Affairs, and so should you. (Tell them specifically which ad or ads are misleading.) I also take every opportunity to email companies misstating free and tell them that until they stop the practice, I will buy elsewhere — even if I wasn’t interested in their product to begin with.

This is not trivial stuff. Language is precious, and we all have an obligation to do what we can to improve — or preserve — its effectiveness.