The article focuses on the impact of the amendments in the Statement of Standard Accounting Practice (SSAP) 6 proposed by the Accounting Standards Committee (ASC) on accountants in Great Britain. Terminology tends to become tarnished with use and it is perhaps unfortunate that the ASC, in proposing amendments to SSAP 6, did not seek out rather less hackneyed words than exceptional and extraordinary to describe categories of expense to which it wished particular treatment to be given in compiling published accounts. These are adjectives that have, over the years, been applied to a collection of quite different categories of cost that their usefulness or value in the context of contemporary reporting has been considerably impaired. Judging from accounts published since the promulgation of the revised version of SSAP 6, the recommendations sponsored by the ASC and put forward in that standard enjoy neither the respect nor the acquiescence of those to whom they are addressed. In the year to December 1986, the Rover Group included as an extraordinary charge not only the cost of divesting itself of certain peripheral businesses but also the losses incurred by those businesses before divestment. When made, those losses fell within the ordinary activities of the group. As such, although they might meet the ASC criterion of being exceptional, they can in no way be considered extraordinary.