You may have noticed that pretty regularly I comment on the crass language used by people who email me in the wasted hope of selling things I don’t need or are attempts to rip me off.
Yesterday in facebook I remarked on something I had received, headed: “Introducing the worlds most dynamic and revolutionary jobs website”.
I thought that even in a world of fatuous overclaim this stood out. Anyhow, this provoked a number of comments – and a good one from Jared Lazaro included a quotation from George Orwell
Jared wrote: “Does NO ONE understand that this sort of drivel makes them look idiotic?!?”
Then he quoted George Orwell:
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”
Few of those labouring in the weed-clogged marketing vineyard have read Orwell but for years in seminars I have adapted his advice from an essay called Politics and the English Language.
I have recently began reading your blog and I get a great kick at you tearing these advertizements apart. I actually ended up here on through searching for a copy of Claude Hopkins book which is great but in saying this, I was searching to better myself at advertizing. I would enjoy some content towards how a advertizement is done well sometimes. I might throw some of my copy-writing at you and see how you tear it apart lol. Keep up the good stuff.
Thanks,
Karson
There's a list of good books on my website http://www.draytonbird.com, Karson. Even mine aren't bad. Or anyhow they're rated 5 star