Mind you, that linguistic obfuscation is seen in other areas; I see some dimwit writing in the NYT today about how the old should go back to work (ooh, me sciatics), it not occurring to him or her that they'd be used for cheap labour to steal jobs from the young.
And to leap nimbly (ooh, me crackly joints) for a moment on my hobby-horse, every reference to a "cyclist" having "died" in an "accident" in which they were "in collision with" an articulated truck, dangles from its arse a collection of comment dingleberries by The Man on the Clapham Omnibus saying "I once nearly got hit by a cyclist they're all going through red lights etc etc".
Not that the Man from Clapham is likely to be on an Omnibus now; he's more likely behind the windscreen of his ridiculously large SUV, wondering why he has no money.