It's not a big deal as long as the turns are not tight. There is lots of overkill in safety requirements. It's not a joke because you can find many threads on the net where people smarter than us discuss it including electrical engineers. They would never design it in because of meeting strict safety requirements and screwing-up the advertised length of the product.
The ground reference is from the power supply. What we are discussing is a direct earth ground as in a rod driven into the earth or even the floor of a basement. There can be a huge difference between the ground of an electrical panel and the earth ground even though there is not really supposed to be one.
I've gone to many meetings at locations with telephone techs to investigate issues with leased lines to figure-out if there is really something wrong, so I do have years of experience with these issues. I've always had straight A's in all my electrical courses also. Two tech school degrees and been playing with electronics since 6th grade. Even college level courses.
I'm not a broker, paid promoter, or officer of any company. Nor am I responsible for you listening to my awesome opinions. :-p ASK and ye shall receive!