An American physician must disclose the risks, benefits and alternatives of a procedure before it takes place, and document that the disclosure occurred. The standard in many states is what a reasonable patient would want to know, not what the patient thought to ask about.
Truth in Lending
Federal law requires a lender to disclose the annual percentage rate, the finance charge, the amount financed and the total of payments, in a prescribed format, before the borrower signs. The disclosure is standardized so it can be compared across lenders. The borrower is not expected to know what to ask.
Nutrition Facts
Federal regulation requires a panel on packaged food giving serving size, calories, and specified nutrients, in a set order and a set format. Every manufacturer must publish the same categories, including the unflattering ones, on the package itself.
Recall notices
A manufacturer that discovers a safety defect must notify the relevant federal agency and then notify owners directly — by mail, by registered address, by VIN. The company that finds the problem is required to go and find the people affected by it.
FYI
American email produced a three-letter abbreviation for sending information to someone who did not ask for it and need do nothing with it. It is one of the most-used abbreviations in American business correspondence. The message exists solely to transfer knowledge, and the sender writes it knowing there will be no reply.
Heads up
Advance warning, given unprompted, about something the other person will otherwise meet without preparation. The metaphor is physical — lift your head, something is coming. It is offered as a courtesy, and it is expected as one.
Blindsided
The American word for being harmed by information you were not given, borrowed from football, where the hit comes from the side the player cannot see. The word places no fault on the person hit. All of it falls on whoever saw what was coming and said nothing.
The reproach
Why am I just hearing about this now? Nobody told me. A heads up would have been nice. I had to find out from someone else. I was the last to know.
Five standard American complaints, and every one of them is aimed at the person who held the information rather than at the person who failed to ask for it.
The loop
Keep me in the loop. Let me loop in Sarah. I’ve been out of the loop. Are you in the loop on this? The loop is something you are placed inside by other people. Nobody speaks of getting themselves into it.
No surprises
Stated openly by American managers as a standing instruction: I don’t like surprises, tell me early, bad news does not improve with age. The instruction concedes that the news may be bad, and asks for it anyway. What is being forbidden is not the problem but the concealment.