This is my first stab at writing since I completed my master’s thesis and graduated, about four weeks ago. While engaged in my thesis, I resisted the urge to blog even though topics kept presenting themselves, such as a little over a year ago when I saw an ad on social media warning that “Tylenol Causes Autism,” something so patently ridiculous that it didn’t need the extensive rant I would have made about it and has since thankfully slipped back into oblivion.

After graduation, I didn’t do any intellectual work for a month because I didn’t have to, for the first time in five years. I wasn’t sure if I would continue this blog or not, but subjects keep poking at me, so back into the fray I go.

Onward to the topic of this post, which is a label. A size label, on women’s clothing. (This may not seem to be a post about autism, but considering I’m dedicating an entire blog post to a single label on the back of a sweatshirt, I think it qualifies.)

I like big, oversized, against-type sweatshirts, and this one is no exception, white with a pale lavender and pastel blue reverse tie-dye pattern, something that does not match the Gen X goth chick vibe of the rest of my wardrobe in any way whatsoever. For reference, my other oversized sweatshirt is a cheap printing of kittens shooting light beams out of their eyes on the front sized XL.

The size label on the pastel one reads “One Size.” I still remember when certain items of clothing, like ponchos (those itchy wool ones my grandmother used to knit) were labeled “One Size Fits All.” Since that time, many such items now bear the only slightly more accurate label “One Size Fits Most.” This particular label on this particular sweatshirt eschewed the political pitfalls of either and simply indicates “One Size.” And to be fair, this sweatshirt is big on me, particularly in length.

In this case, though, such a designation, despite the length, seems inaccurate. I’m a smaller than average human, almost entirely for genetic reasons, and thereby I prefer to steer clear of issues about women’s sizing, but this one got to me for something I just noticed today. When I pushed the sweatshirt’s sleeves up, I noticed that they are narrow enough to stay up. In comparison, for the kitten one, I have to roll the sleeves several times over to get them to stay.

If you ask me, the latter is much more suited to the “One Size” designation than the garment I have on now, specifically because of the sleeves. The “One Size” applies to height, but definitely not women’s size, because these sleeves would be too tight for anyone over a women’s size Medium, typically a size 8 or 10. (On a related note, a size 8 or 10 is much smaller than the medium-sized American woman is now and suggests a long overdue rethinking of women’s sizing but that is a third rail I’d rather avoid.) I’m just inordinately upset at the makers of this piece of clothing, labeling it “One Size” while ensuring that only a fraction of women would deem it so.

I take words very, very seriously. Since my ability to infer unspoken communication between people is practically non-existent (the autism thing), words are important to me. The audacity of this designer to so carelessly label this product “One Size” when it clearly isn’t, not even if you default to “One Size Fits Most,” seems needlessly discriminatory, if not downright insulting, and it bugs me. A lot. It’s right up there with “Tylenol causes autism,” which is also downright wrong. Not a lot of women can wear this shirt, lucky for me, I guess, since it was at a consignment store and would have sold already if it had been labeled “S/M” instead of “One Size,” as it was with the XLs, where many women who wear that size would have tried it on and then not bought it because of the sleeves.

It’s as though they thought they could remake women’s sizing to be more open by calling it something different, as though saying something made it true even if it wasn’t before. (This also applies to the Tylenol thing.) You can’t just remake the world via relabeling. Not that people don’t try. Firing a bunch of people is “downsizing” or, I read somewhere, “restructuring,” a euphemisticky euphemism that means nothing because it could mean anything.

And it’s everywhere now. Back when I was still working, I would pass a sign for an elementary school on my commute that read “We cultivate and empower lifelong learners.” (It looks even more ridiculous than it reads because the sign is in all caps.) And it was annoying. Because what does that even mean? After asking myself that question for weeks, I found the root of my aversion–it doesn’t actually mean anything. There are no concrete goals or even tasks there. (Not to mention that the public school system doesn’t leave a lot of room for cultivating and empowering anything other than multiple-choice test-takers, but I digress.) It sounds stupid because it is stupid.

This non-speak is everywhere now. I had an 80s jingle for MacDonald’s in my head last night. (Do we even have jingles anymore?) When I was a kid, we used to do a complex clapping sequence to it. It went (I think) “Bic Mac Filet-O-Fish Quarter Pounder French Fries Icy Coke Thick Shakes Sundaes and Apple Pies. You deserve a break today so get up and get away to MacDonald’s!” Not only did this actually feature the entire menu, it also, helpfully, suggested an veritable course of action.

Not so for slogans these days. Now Panasonic wants to give you “A Better Life and A Better World,” LG wants you to know that “Life’s Good,” and CocaCola wants you to “Open Happiness.” Red Bull gives you Wings, and Reese’s is Not Sorry. Note that none of these has anything to do with what the product is or does; we could shuffle them around and it wouldn’t matter. CocaCola is Not Sorry and Red Bull want’s you to know that Life’s Good. And the reason we can do that is because none of these slogans, these phrases, actually mean anything. And I could keep going. It’s fun, I’ll write a slogan and you’ll have to look it up to know what it’s for. Like “Think Different” or “Impossible is Nothing” or “Never Follow.”

What does any of this mean? Nothing. It means nothing! You know it, I know it, and on top of it, everyone hates Red Bull and Reese’s commercials, and consumes those products in spite of it, which makes you wonder if that isn’t the point, to make something so horrendously annoying that it clears the bar for memorable, since the last few slogans from the last paragraph sound familiar but don’t actually suggest even a product category, let alone an actual item.

We’ve now devolved into using the English language’s capacity for ambivalence to an absurd degree. Everyone says a lot of things, and they all mean absolutely nothing.

Just like the “One Size” label on this sweatshirt.