Wordcracker: Copywriter
Posted: January 4, 2011 Filed under: Copywriting & Creative, Wordcracker, writing | Tags: Advertising, business writing, Copywriting & Creative, creative, freelance writing, marketing, Origin of copywriter, writing 1 Comment »An advertising writer is called a copywriter. But why? Why “copy?” The story starts a long time ago, even before advertising as we know it. While “copy” can mean an imitation or facsimile, it can also refer–according my trusty Oxford English Dictionary–to the thing being copied. A copy, then, can be “the original writing, work of art, etc., from which a copy is made.” We can find this usage as far back as 1481.
So what does this have to do with advertising writing? Plenty. Fast forward to the moveable type printing press and the printed newspapers it spawned. The manuscript written (and later typed) by the news writer was called a copy because, we can now deduce, it would soon be copied by the typesetter and printer. In fact, a “copy boy” was often employed to run the manuscript from writer to editor to typesetter. Eventually, the “a” was dropped, so a copy became simply “copy,” used in much the same way we use the word “text.”
So, you keep asking, what does this have to do with advertising writing? Everything! To pay the journalists and the pressmen and make a profit, newspapers sold advertising (why do you think advertising courses are so often buried in our colleges’ schools of journalism?). Someone had to write the verbiage–the copy–for the ads they sold. And the copywriter–and a title that differentiated him from the journalist or news writer–was born.
The unfortunate similarity of “copywriter” and “copyright” causes consternation for many. You’ve got to be a lawyer to deal with copyright issues, and that I am certainly not. In fact, I have a hard enough time just coming up with a company name or a snappy slogan that has the potential to be copyrighted. Try coming up with an original website domain, for example. It isn’t easy. Because of this confusion and because not that many people know where the word “copy” comes from in the first place, I prefer to say I am an advertising writer or a marketing writer. And when I am feeling particularly smug, I simply say that I’m a writer, knowing that it will evoke all sorts of romantic notions in people’s heads. That, of course, often backfires, and they ask, “Oh, anything I might have read?”
Probably not. Not yet, anyway.
Wordcracker: Ground Zero Mosque
Posted: August 24, 2010 Filed under: Dysphemism, Ethics, Euphemism, Language, Publishing, Wordcracker | Tags: ground zero, journalism, media, mosque, writing 8 Comments »
What do you call a phrase like “Ground Zero Mosque?” Loaded language, for sure. Actually, there is a word for it: dysphemism. Dysphemism is roughly the opposite of euphemism. While euphemism is the softening of language or ideas to make them less offensive, dysphemism is all about making the language or idea more offensive. That, of course, has been the motive of “journalists” who have used the phrase “Ground Zero Mosque” in their headlines. You can read (and listen to) more about that here at OnTheMedia.org.
What makes it dysphemism? For starters, when you put those three words together, it sounds as if the mosque is going to be right at Ground Zero. There is nothing separating the word “Mosque” from the words “Ground Zero.” In reality, however, there are two New York City blocks separating Ground Zero from the mosque building site. A word like “near” would certainly have helped preserve the truth: “Mosque Near Ground Zero.” But the news writers chose to be less precise and more sensational.
This is no basic form of dysphemism, however. An example of regular, run-of-the-mill dysphemism would be calling a printed paper edition of a periodical the “dead tree edition.” There’s nothing untrue about it. It merely seeks to create a negative reaction in the reader by focusing on what might be seen as a drawback of printed publications when compared to their online counterparts. But “Ground Zero Mosque” is more diabolical because it also makes use of hyperbole. It exaggerates the truth. It dispenses with those two blocks and puts Ground Zero and the Mosque within one typed space of each other.
This is much the same sort of dysphemism as “snail mail.” Compared to email, the postal service is slower. But is it really as slow as a snail? Of course not. Exaggeration. The difference here, however, is that nobody really believes mail is delivered by snail or that it is really that slow. “Snail mail” is dysphemism in search of humor. “Ground Zero Mosque” is dysphemism in search of division and fear.
Whether you are for or against a mosque being built two blocks from Ground Zero, I hope we can all agree that it is irresponsible for news agencies such as the Associated Press and Fox News to use “Ground Zero Mosque” in a headline. Both did. And it is equally irresponsible for the public to allow itself to be manipulated by such headlines. You may say that sticks and stones will break your bones, and that words will never harm you. But it is most often words that start the sticks and stones to flying.
I am afraid that “Ground Zero Mosque” just may be ground zero for something that threatens this free country even more than terrorism. The slow death of objective journalism and, even scarier, our ability to recognize it when we see it.
For another great example of dysphemism check this out, which chronicles the transformation of the “estate tax” to the “death tax.”
Wordcracker: Coo-pon or Cue-pon?
Posted: September 4, 2009 Filed under: Language, Vocabulary, Wordcracker | Tags: Coupon, Language, pronunciation, speech 4 Comments »Now for something fun and pertinent to our recent economic upheaval. If you live in the United States, please participate in the following poll. To aid us in our research even further, please leave a comment restating your answer and providing any explanatory information you might want to offer, especially what part of the country you are originally from and what part of the country you live in now. I’ll leave this poll active indefinitely in hopes of accumulating enough answers to draw reasonable conclusions. Thanks!
Wordcracker: neologism
Posted: April 24, 2009 Filed under: Language, Vocabulary, Wordcracker | Tags: English, neologisms, new words, words Leave a comment »It means “new word.” New words are added to the English language every day, and folks say we’re nearing our millionth word. But I won’t go into a long dissertation about neologisms because Forbes recently hired linguists and others experts to do it. Lots of interesting articles about WORDS in the current issue. Check it out!
And for more from Wordnut on coining words, go here.
Wordcracker: Solutions
Posted: March 5, 2009 Filed under: Copywriting & Creative, Language, Vocabulary, Wordcracker, writing | Tags: Advertising, business writing, Copywriting & Creative, marketing, Solutions 4 Comments »It’s everywhere, this word solutions, especially in business, advertising and marketing. And although folks are pretty fed up with it and there is discussion all over the internet about how it is overused, I’m here to tell you that solutions will remain a part of advertising communication. After all, the best answer to a customer’s problem is always going to be the solution.
The problem–and it is such a big problem that I actually had a client tell me to avoid the word entirely–isn’t so much that the word is overused. It’s that the word is misused. Too often we see the word as an end-all, as if it means something or everything all on its own:
We sell solutions!
Used in this way, the word is empty. Who doesn’t sell solutions? But more importantly, solutions to what? This is akin to saying, “We provide services!” The only difference is that a solution sounds like a service that actually works. Still, the hollowness rings.
We also see the word in a lot of company slogans and descriptive taglines:
Advanced software solutions
Okay, a little more specific. But is software the problem and you have the solution? Or do you have solutions in the form of software? If the latter, we still don’t know what problems are being solved or how anybody benefits. There’s just too much dependence on the word solutions as a substitute for more specific, concrete language.
While the examples above cry out for a ban on the word, writer’s like myself in the trenches of persuasive writing still depend on it, and I won’t give it up without a fight. Here is an example that shows what, in my opinion, is an acceptable and even advantageous use of the word:
We create crime-fighting software applications that prevent check fraud and eliminate identity theft, real solutions that can protect your bank and your customers.
Now the word solutions is out of the limelight but still helps us position the software as a product that fully solves specific problems.
Solution will always serve nicely as an alternative for other much-used words, such as service and product. But it can’t be used as substitute for substance or for the language necessary to communicate a benefit to the prospect.
Only in the presence of the problem is solution the solution.
What’s your take?
Wordcracker: Tump
Posted: February 21, 2009 Filed under: Language, Southern Words, Vocabulary, Wordcracker | Tags: Language, tump, Vocabulary Leave a comment »If you are from the southern U.S., you may know of or actually use the verb tump. Perhaps your children use it. You won’t find it in all dictionaries, but it is a word all the same. I grew up using the word. Heck, I still use it. What does it mean? First of all, don’t waste your time with the Oxford English Dictionary. There, a tump is a clump or mound and a tump-line is a strap used by people carrying large loads on their back. It goes across the forehead to help them better manage the load. (My O.E.D. is old; perhaps it has been amended.)
On the web, you’ll find a lot of incomplete answers. A site I like, Word Detective, has an entry about it, and although the writer finally touches on the actual meaning, he still seems to be scratching his head. The online dictionary Encarta says it means to overturn; to knock over. This is an unacceptable oversimplification.
Although a bit of a mystery for even the experts, it’s clear to me that tump is a combination of the words tip and dump. I have also seen theories that it is a combination of turn and dump. If I were writing my own dictionary, my definition would be something along the lines of:
Tumping is a violent or consequential tipping over of something.
That consequence is usually something being spilled or dumped. So although a kid might merely tip over his empty glass, he would tump it over if it had milk in it. You might tip over an upright domino, but you would tump over a kid on his tricycle.
You could tip over a kid on his bike or even knock him over, but there’s the chance that he could catch himself with his foot. Tump him over and can’t you just hear his little body thump against the sidewalk?
You might also tump over anything that is big or heavy, whether anything is actually spilled or not. For example, you might tip over a toy, but you would tump over the wheelbarrow to check a tire.
Sure you can turn over a wheelbarrow. But to me that requires a certain amount of control. A more careful deliberate action. Tump over a wheel barrow and you get the gravity of it. Less control, more weight. When you put down anything particularly heavy or big, there is a certain amount of dumping going on, isn’t there, the not-so-careful placing of the object because, well, because it is big and heavy. Dump those boxes over there, we might say.
What self-respecting, high-flying Southerner hasn’t tumped a swing set over?
Also, tumping can just happen. A wheelbarrow can suddenly tump over because it is loaded poorly. Nobody actually has to knock it over.
I love words and phrases like tump over and fixing to because they seem to fill a void left by our “proper” vocabulary. They uniquely express something that no other word or phrase quite gets right.
Although I love the word, I could never use “tump” in my professional writing. Not because it is slang. I’m not so sure it is. But, obviously, it is not universal enough and, as a result, sounds uneducated, even rednecked.
I come by it honestly, though. When I was little, my mother, who is of Scottish stock, called a thing with stripes on it “stri-ped.” She has since reformed. But this is an Elizabethan pronunciation that still lives in parts of Appalachia where many Scotch-Irish settled, and apparently to some extent in other parts of the South (my mom is from Memphis). For years I said stri-ped, too. As in, “Mama, can I have s’more ice-tea and a paper tow’l; I just tumped over my strip-ed Dixie cup.”
Man, have I come a long way. Now I tump over my Chardonnay.
