The platform announcement

Source A: an original contemporary non-fiction-style account.

The announcement apologised for an inconvenience that had already lasted forty minutes. Its voice was smooth, level and apparently untouched by the platform around it. A child was crying beside a suitcase. Two commuters were calculating missed connections. The speaker above us expressed regret with the composure of a person describing weather in another country.

We were told that the service was experiencing an operational issue. The phrase landed neatly and explained almost nothing. Was the train broken, absent or simply elsewhere? Another message thanked us for our patience, a quality nobody had checked that we still possessed. I wanted information with corners: a reason, a likely time, a choice I could act on. Instead, the words arrived polished until there was little left to hold.

Eventually a member of staff walked down the platform and explained that a fault was being inspected, with no confirmed departure time. It was not cheerful news, but it was usable. Several people left to find buses; others stayed. The delay remained. What changed was the sense of being addressed by somebody who understood that our waiting was made of actual plans, not merely an item in an apology.

Refer to the whole of Source A. Analyse how the writer uses language to criticise the language of the announcements. Explain the effects of specific words, phrases and language choices, using evidence from the passage.