Euphemism can lead to copywriting sin

For a writer in advertising, marketing, or PR, euphemism is a way of life. Fat girls are full-figured. Old people are in their leisure years. Used cars are pre-owned or, as a former client preferred, “new-to-you cars.” Gambling is gaming. If you write for the White House these days, you don’t just come out and say people are hungry; you say they have low food security. If you write for a lying politician, you say that he misspoke. And baring a breast at the Super Bowl is called a wardrobe malfunction. This is nothing new. It’s as old as language itself. One of my favorites? The Civil War, once called the War of Northern Aggression throughout the South, became afterward “The Late Unpleasantness.”

Some euphemisms are meant to make exclusive things more inclusive. A Christmas tree becomes a holiday tree. Halloween parties become harvest parties. Prayer becomes a moment of silence. And we use a lot of euphemisms for the sake of politeness in a civilized society. A good many bodily functions and their euphemisms come to mind.

But when does euphemism become lie? I came across a good example recently. A camera company marketed its products as “focus-free.” Listed as a benefit, this sounds good, like fat-free, hands-free, hassle-free. In reality it is a form of Orwellian doublespeak, designed to make you think a drawback is actually a benefit. A focus-free camera is one in which the lens is fixed. The focus cannot be adjusted at all, manually or automatically. This results in many pictures that really aren’t in focus.

You could say that literally the company is telling the truth; the camera is free of focus. But the intent? To make it sound like a desirable feature. The problem for even the most conscientious, upstanding, and ethical copywriters is that we don’t always know what we’re writing about. Copywriters don’t have the time and aren’t getting paid to be investigative journalists (and certainly not to investigate the hand that feeds us). If the camera company gives us a list of benefits to include like this:

Lightweight

5 megapixel resolution

Focus-free

then we easily assume (as we are meant to) that focus-free is a good thing and we list it accordingly. Put on an exclamation point–Focus-free!–and you really have something exciting. The result, however, may be an unhappy consumer. And a loss of goodwill.

Although a copywriter is probably better than most at discerning BS when he sees it (or creates it), there are times, I am sure, when we are just as gullible as anyone else. We have to have some faith in our clients in order for them to have faith in us. So we really never know how many times we may have misled our target audience. This of course, opens up all kinds of questions.

How culpable are copywriters? Aren’t we merely wordsmiths for the messages our clients want to create? And shouldn’t we assume our clients tell the truth? Usually a copywriter doesn’t determine the facts to be conveyed. He determines how they will be conveyed subject to the approval of the client. Notwithstanding, can’t both the facts and how they are conveyed add up to an “untruth?” Is the graphic designer less culpable than the copywriter? What about the account executive? What about the magazine that publishes the ad? As an independent copywriter, I have the ability to choose my clients to some extent, and I choose them carefully, knowing full well that my work may only be as ethical as the clients I write for.

Just like the consumer, however, copywriters are often given just enough information to be dangerous. I hope in all my years of copywriting that I haven’t led people down the garden path, and if I have, I would like to apologize. My intentions have always been honorable, and if “mistakes were made,” it was only because I “miswrote.”