A linguistic irritant LXXXI

Why just say something when you can release a statement instead?  Politicians and CEOs are notorious for this.  My cat, Sylvia, even got carried away once when I drew the line at giving her a ninth drink of water from the kitchen faucet in six hours.  Her publicist handed me the statement.  I told Sylvia that releasing a statement was heavy-handed when she could just explain her plight to me.  Since then, she has lobbied me with occasionally stern meows, and I've given her the water she requests.  We're both reasonable that way, and neither of us have released any statements since then.