Mamet’s other named example. The product on the shelf says “Improved!” and the shopper has no way to check, and the manufacturer knows it. Sometimes something was improved. Often the box was redesigned, the quantity was reduced, or the formula was made cheaper and called “new.”

The genius of the phrase is that it is unfalsifiable at the point of sale. Improved compared to what? Measured how? The word asks for your trust and gives you nothing to verify it with, and it has been asking for a century, so by now nobody expects it to mean anything. That is Mamet’s actual worry: not that one box lies, but that a word gets used up. “Improved” is now a noise the package makes.

The modern refinement is shrinkflation, where the box stays the same size and the contents do not, and the label says “New Look!” which is, strictly, true.