Watching TV ads I often wonder if anyone stops to think about what words they use. I assume they must, but...
I have two favourites in this area. One is from a few years back and it was for a new bra from Victoria Secret. The tag line for the ad was "A bra so well designed, so well made, it could only be called....Vapris." Ok, I don't remember what the last word was--but my point is that it was a made-up word (a nonce word, for the initiated). Any combination of letters could have followed "only be called..." It could have been "Gork", or "xyzzy", or "Fred."
My latest fave is an add for KFC which begins "Other restaurants make chicken nuggets. What part of the chicken is the nugget?" It then goes on to say that "We make popcorn chicken." OK. And what part of the chicken is the 'popcorn'? A perfect example of moving the problem around but not actually solving it.
Reading or read:
I have two favourites in this area. One is from a few years back and it was for a new bra from Victoria Secret. The tag line for the ad was "A bra so well designed, so well made, it could only be called....Vapris." Ok, I don't remember what the last word was--but my point is that it was a made-up word (a nonce word, for the initiated). Any combination of letters could have followed "only be called..." It could have been "Gork", or "xyzzy", or "Fred."
My latest fave is an add for KFC which begins "Other restaurants make chicken nuggets. What part of the chicken is the nugget?" It then goes on to say that "We make popcorn chicken." OK. And what part of the chicken is the 'popcorn'? A perfect example of moving the problem around but not actually solving it.
Reading or read:
- Gotham Central Book 2: Jokers and Madmen by Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark
- Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
- Hicksville by Dylan Horrocks
- The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg
- Messenger by Lois Lowry
- Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
- The Broom of the System: A Novel by David Foster Wallace
- The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction by Gene Wolfe
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
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