The reports on Bank of America’s credit-card arm, MBNA, marketing an affinity card tied to Olivia, a San Francisco-based travel agency, seem to pull back from an accurate description of Olivia. The AP calls Olivia “a company that caters primarily to the lesbian community.” Yet Olivia itself has none of the qualifiers:
Olivia is dedicated to providing high quality, safe vacations for lesbian travelers. Imagine an entire resort or cruise ship full of lesbians. That’s right, we charter the entire ship or resort! It’s an overwhelming feeling to know that you are always among friends, from stem to stern.
So from Olivia’s point of view, and very popular market niche, the “primarily” thing clearly should be “exclusively.” So how did we end up with the soft-sell version?
Maybe it has something to do with MBNA’s anti-discrimination stance: “company policy prohibits discrimination in purchasing on the basis of the race, gender, sexual orientation, age, or religion of any subcontractor, vendor, or supplier.” Some corporate lawyer-type may have figured that did not square with a partner who aims to fill cruise ships and resorts with lesbians, and thus the “caters primarily” spin was born.
In any event, language is a wonderful thing.
