The Limits of Belief

 Words change their meaning all the time in modern English. I found the misuse of one of them in the strapline of a petfood company advertising in the "colour" supplement of my weekend paper. It reads

Royal Canin: Incredible in every detail

 
I have nothing whatsoever to say about the products of this enterprise. My pets comprise an unruly fellowship of eight goldfish who from time to time oblige me by surfacing from the inky depths of the waters on my estate [pond out the back: Ed] to consume some of the foul-smelling stuff I buy once a year to feed them with and I get the little pot from another supplier. But I digress. Consider the statement "incredible in every detail". What do you think they wish us to understand?
Incredible means not credible, unbelievable, outside the realms of possibility. It does not mean (or at any rate, should not mean) wonderful, brilliant, inspiring, boundary-pushing, 'gosh I wish I could do that' although these are perhaps the meanings the admen might hope we would attribute to it. Nor does it mean something that would be ok to post on Instagram and forget about within seconds, even though it seems some do indeed use it in this fashion. If you tell me something and I say "That's incredible", then I mean that I do not accept your statement. Thus;

"Darling, sorry I'm late, there was a traffic jam" is a fair statement.
"Darling, sorry I'm late, the bus hit a tree and it took thirty minutes for a replacement" is also fair.
"Darling, it's so exciting, I was abducted by space aliens, taken to a mothership and forced to drink four vodka martinis before they released me with a message for the leaders of Mankind" is incredible. Not in the sense of "wow, awesome dude" as our American cousins would perhaps have it. Incredible as in lacking any sense of believability, rubbish, a plain lie.

And so we turn back to the petfood vendors with whom we started. Every thing about this company is not believable, according to its publicists. Its claims about the value of its products. Its mission statements. The ingredients. Perhaps even the contents of its annual financial accounts. They have made it plain as can be - incredible in every detail. Not to be trusted or indeed to have any credence put upon them. Could this be their prawn sandwich moment?