People are sick of corporate-speak. They were sick of it a long time ago, but in today’s era of conversation, corporate-speak stands in stark contrast to the authentic human voice conveyed in most blogs, podcasts, and other social media. Who would want to read a blog post labeled “Synergy” that talks about “shifting paradigms by leveraging core competencies as part of our quest to achieve world-class status as a leader in best practices…” (Credit to Steve Crescenzo, who is the master of parodying this kind of corporate crap.)

One of the worst bits of corporatese is employed virtually any time a company screws up, and PR people are among the worst offenders. “Acme, Inc., regrets any inconvenience the explosion of our plant and levelling of the adjacent town may have caused town residents.” David Weinberger writes about this phenomenon in his wonderful book, “Small Pieces Loosely Joined,” suggesting…

Companies talk in bizarre, stilted ways because they believe that such language expresses their perection…This rhetoric is as glossy and unbelievable as the photos in the marketing brochure. Such talk kills conversation. That’s exactly why companies talk this way.

Well, there’s another reason. They’re called “lawyers,” and they believe the imperfect human voice of a real person could leave the company open to liability. I wonder, though, if that liability is greater than the cost to an organization’s reputation when it responds to emotionally-charged circumstances with such stilted, impersonal language.

As I’ve written here before, “I’m sorry” is one of the hardest things for companies to say. I’ve suggested blogs by executives open the door for this more honest and human approach, and I’ve reported on one executive who actually posted a comment to a blog in which he apologized “unreservedly” on behalf of himself and his company.

It turns out, though, that companies can use traditional channels to issue an apology, too. JetBlue did it through a corporate spokesperson after its recent PR crisis.

In case you missed it, JetBlue planes were stuck on the tarmac at JFK last Wednesday when a storm struck New York. The planes couldn’t take off and there were no open gates to which they could return, so passengers sat on the planes for as long as eight hours. Some of the planes weren’t heated. They ran out of food. The toilets got unbearably filthy.

A typical corporate response would have said, “JetBlue regretss any inconvenience the storm in New York may have caused passengers.”

What the spokesperson said was that JetBlue apologizes, adding, “What happened last Wednesday was totally unacceptable.”

Totally. How human.

Further, JetBlue’s CEO, David Neeleman, is set to announce a “Customer Bill of Rights” that will govern the airline’s operations. That’s another smart move, since travelers are renewing demands that the U.S. Congress take action to implement a similar code. According to a Money Magazine report, the bill of rights—to be announced tomorrow—will include self-imposed penalties and substantial rewards to passengers if the airline can’t adjust to weather-related cancellations in a “reasonable” period of time.

I wasn’t stuck on the plane when my JetBlue flight from Dulles a couple years back was delayed five hours by weather. The gate agents brought food, pillows, and blankets from the jetway, made announcements about every 20 minutes, and gave everybody a free one-way ticket. JetBlue may have screwed up (and Neeleman said in a TV interview that he doesn’t blame customers for being upset), but their reaction to the screw-up is pretty much on target, and consistent with my experience with an airline that appears genuinely to care about passengers.

This isn’t to say JetBlue is doing everything right. I wonder, for example, why the company’s website is silent on the issue. Neeleman’s pseudo-blog (it takes no comments) hasn’t been updated since February 1, and the press room—while loaded with press releases about cancellations and rebookings—doesn’t reiterate the spokesperson’s apology.

Still, it’s refreshing to hear a company say “I’m sorry.” More companies should follow the example.

Update: Fellow crayonista Steve Coulson emailed me that he met Neeleman and shot a video of him explaning that companies should react to adversity by becoming better companies.