English Mojo

How does a blood and guts conflict turn into a word war in Washington? What was behind the sidestepping by politicos as soldiers moved toward the front? English Mojo examines the depth of a momentous phraseology battle.
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One day not long ago nearly a million people went online to vote for one. A global computer maker recently launched one. And so did a brewery in Wales, a mega-church im Oklahoma, and a soccer club in Australia. The object of their attentions were slogans. What they launched were these: “Believe or burn”; “Remember, there was a time when you thought you wouldn’t like sex either”; “A Newport blonde goes down better”; and “Go far, keep your secrets close”. So, who launched which slogan? “Believe or burn” belongs to the soccer team. The remark about sex comes from the church. The Newport blonde – displayed in an ad as a model in fishnet stockings and hotpants – refers to a beer. And the computer maker encourages the secrecy. Slogans go by many names: tags, tag lines, end lines and straplines. They serve as indispensable short swords for politicians, corporations and everyone else aiming at the public’s attention. The word, slogan, originally meant a Scottish war cry. Everyday slogans serve as the battle shouts of modern commerce. Slogan-making leads to compact messaging, active at breaking through the consumer’s usual word associations. These shortswords are being sharpened to ever-finer edges meant to cut through our normal sense of English. The American Association of Advertising Agencies’ third year honoring slogans on its Madison Avenue Walk of Fame brought in those near-million votes including two that gained immense popularity. These two were the edgy “Just do it” for athletic shoes and “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk” for safe roads. But the slogans that consumers seemed to like most were: “Don’t mess with Texas”, for anti-littering; and “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”, for delivery service. Advertising slogans began at least as long ago as the 1880’s, when an obscure bottled beverage was relesed under the simple two-word slogan, “Drink Coca-Cola”. [Thanks for joining us at EnglishMojo.com.] Coke’s slogan has since morphed into over 150 variations. Early on it was “For headache and exhaustion”. Then as the 20th Century opened, it became “The favorite drink for ladies when thirsty, weary, and despondent”. A United States under prohibition of alcohol saw it become “The Great National Temperance”, then “It will satisfy you”, and later “Thirst can’t be denied”. Dust-bowl depression provoked the term, “Ice-cold sunshine”. Then as the economy shifted upward, America heard, “Carry a smile back to work”. The Second World War saw “It’s the real thing”. The Vietnam Era brought an expansive “I’d like to buy the world a Coke”. Soon afterward post-war blues were offered “Look up America”, and “Coke adds life”. A succession of forgettable phrases followed in the 1980’s and 90’s until the vague “Life is Good” appeared in 2001. Whatever the slogan, one trend is strengthening: its writers are aiming increasingly at emotions and impulsive reactions. For copywriters, slogans fall into categories. Canadian Alan Sharpe indentified a list of these categories. They include: Ask a Question, as in Clairol’s “Does she or doesn’t she?”; Link a Product Feature with an Abstract Need, as in DeBeers’ famous “A diamond is forever”; and Make a Compelling Promise, as in Federal Express’s “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”. Slogans can provide miniature fantasy scripts, triggering our brains to produce mental micro-movies, full of imagery and emotions. A slogan can be created for just about any mood. For bold seduction, consider Venere Hotel Reservations’ “Sleep with us!”. To generate anxiety-driven hope, try Lenovo Computers’ “New World. New Thinking.” Looking for homey comfort? Motel 6 generated “We’ll leave the light on for you.” How about helpless fear? [...]
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Want to see hundreds of expensively dressed men and women trading verbal punches? Look at any election for the United States Congress. Political slugfests also happen in Britain, Australia, Canada, and elsewhere. But the stunning thing about America’s particular free-for-all is how the disappearance of one small phrase can suddenly send incumbents scrambling to rewrite their battle plans. Only a few weeks before one election began unrolling, the president did the unthinkable to his fellow party politicians. He jettisoned a two-year old catchphrase that had united them in promoting an increasingly unpopular overseas war. Instantly and completely the sound bite, “Stay the Course”, disappeared from his speeches and statements. The president’s companion attack mantra “Cut and Run” disappeared as well. “Stay the Course” evoked the image of an unswerving ship’s captain. “Cut and Run” suggested a battlefield coward. “Stay the Course” first appeared in print in the mid 1880’s, and applied to a race horse’s ability to cross the finish line as a winner. By the end of World War I, politicians had reined it to their own purposes. “Cut and Run” was actually the nautical term and long an established military tactic used by sailing ships under sudden attack. It goes back over 200 years. To free a vessel for quick escape the anchor cable would be slashed, allowing it to fall into the sea as sails were raised. There is nothing like a war to generate political slogans. Recent hostilities have inspired presidential “We’ll Stand Down When They Stand Up”, and “Mission Accomplished”. The latter appeared as signage behind the president on the deck of an aircraft carrier. And “Protecting America” was posted at the signing table of the much-distrusted Military Commissions Act of 2006. But for raw power and simplicity, no one beats the ancient Roman, Cato. The senator became famous for closing all his speeches with the imperative, “Carthage Must Be Destroyed!” Rome eventually attacked. Election watchwords range from sweet to sarcastic, from personal praise to attacks and counter attacks. Sometimes they even take sides on an issue. Often developed by a campaign team of three to four people, they can be stabs in the dark, seeking to hit an emotion, evoke an impression, or trigger a voter’s mood such as optimism, anxiety , anger or apprehension. Many times, because they have the impossible task of being distinct and memorable while remaining vague, they fail. The beauty of a political slogan lies in its ability to imply much and say little. Consider this from the Scottish National Party: “The Power for Change” and “It’s Scotland’s Oil”. Or this from different parties in Canada: “Moving Forward” and “Someday is Now”. From Australia: “When It Matters” and “We’re for the Country”. In the UK the war of watchwords brought forth from the Labour Party “New Labour, New Life for Britain”, which was countered by the Conservatives with “New Labour, New Danger”. The mysterious appeared in “Britain Forward Not Back” and “Are You Thinking What We’re Thinking?”. And there was the especially irrelevant, “Proud of Britain”. But no place produces more sloganeering variety than America. How important is it there? [Thanks for joining us at EnglishMojo.com.] If cost is any indication, one group estimates that spending one season for 468 positions in Congress reached 2.6 billion dollars. That works out to nearly six million dollars per seat, and is said to average about $60 per vote in the Senate, and $35 per vote in the House. That’s a long way from the quaint 1840’s “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” and the beginnings of presidential campaigning. Americans have since gone through [...]
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Three languages battle to dominate over a billion people. English has made India a world player. The country is an outsourcing king, especially among publishers. Read a book or visit a web site, and there’s a chance that some part of it was produced or serviced in India. How strong is English in India today? What forces oppose it? And which way is the struggle for language dominance going? Every day on their subcontinent nearly 150 million Indians read 8,000 domestically-published English language newspapers. The circulations of some are undeniably world-class. The most striking example is Number Six on the global Top Ten list of daily newspapers in English, the Times of India, which outranks both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. English language books, too, are big. Only the US and the UK publish more than India, which releases 20,000 titles a year, more than a fourth of the country’s total production. China can produce goods cheaper, but India’s unrivaled second language experience gives it an edge in the global business of information industry outsourcing. Worldwide, publishers outsource to the tune of a couple billion dollars. So, Delhi caters to book giants like Macmillan and Thomson Press. Geography, which for generations hindered development on the subcontinent, now conspires with English. Together in the digital age, they produce a situation of high value timing. Now call centers and web sites are milking the difference in time zones. News portal CNET, for example, uses Indians to keep its news site fresh when HQ staff back home in the States are sleeping. Consider the huge effect the language has on India in the 21st Century. You might think it gets protected status there. But far from securing its place, English is being challenged in the world’s next most populous country. [Thanks for joining us at EnglishMojo.com.] The premier challenger to Indian English is Hindi. These two languages cooperated for two and a half centuries to dominate the vast subcontinent. But early signs of a change show Hindi emerging as the possible lingua franca of the literate in India. Penguin Books India, which always only published in English recently launched its first publishing program in Hindi. Hindi is already spoken by four to five times as many Indians as any other native language including Bengali, Tamil or Telugu. On the global scale -if you count only native speakers – Hindi appears even larger than English. But big as it is, this potential English-killer has failed to win over the large non-Hindi regions of the country. In the south English remains the lingua franca. No one can say for certain how this struggle will turn out. It is possible that these two leviathans languages may have to yield to yet a third force, their own offspring. “Hinglish” is the name given to English spiced with Hindi vocabulary, or to Hindi syntax supplemented with English. It’s currently popular among the Indian middle class. So advertisers – who might otherwise choose either Hindi or English – are using Hinglish. Their reasoning: though they might be understood well enough in either of the two languages, the hybrid offspring gives them maximum connection with their audiences. As a result Indian advertising from most multinational corporations is filled with Hinglish. In previous generations many Indians grew up thinking that if you can’t speak perfect English, you shouldn’t speak it at all. But now market power has shifted to the young. To them, being understood outclasses being correct. This new attitude opens the door wide for the mix that is Hinglish. English, Hindi or Hinglish for India, [...]
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Campaigns perhaps never die. Their gibberish just echoes on and on. “In a world where evil still exists…now is the time, this is the place…for our families, for our future, for America.” Is this a scary action film trailer, or the 60-second campaign commercial of Mitt Romney? “We know what needs to be done… in this room right now…it’s time.” Does this come from an inspirational self-help guru, or the 30-second campaign commercial of John Edwards? See the ads come apart as FactCheck.org tears through this pair of presidential campaign hopefuls over the coals in its analysis, 99% Fact-Free.
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Why does this country so far from the origins of a language embrace it? What obstacles arise between a visual Asian language and a phonetic European one? How far does the Japanese version of English go? English Mojo explores the often bewildering world of Japanese English.
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How can you learn new words? How are neologisms created? What are the origins of new word lists? English Mojo presents some of the recent additions to dictionaries, along with tips for increasing your vocabulary.
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