{"id":33,"date":"2008-12-20T06:43:41","date_gmt":"2008-12-20T14:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/?p=33"},"modified":"2008-12-20T06:45:22","modified_gmt":"2008-12-20T14:45:22","slug":"a-little-bit-pregnant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/2008\/12\/20\/a-little-bit-pregnant\/","title":{"rendered":"A Little Bit Pregnant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I heard a commercial on the radio yesterday that made me laugh&#8230;but not because the ad was intended to be funny.\u00a0 It was the type of ad I call &#8220;English-challenged&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The ad copy (for which business I don&#8217;t remember) claimed the sale now underway was &#8220;&#8230;the <em>most unique<\/em> in the area!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pardon me.\u00a0 Have the people who wrote this copy opened a dictionary lately?\u00a0 Apparently not.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Unique<\/strong><\/em> is defined as being one of a kind; standing alone. Nothing else like it.\u00a0 This means &#8220;unique&#8221; is not subject to modification.\u00a0 It cannot be more or less; it is either one of a kind or it is not.\u00a0 Sort of like being pregnant.\u00a0 You either are or you aren&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>But this is not a surprise.\u00a0 Language on the Radio (and TV) is tortured and twisted every day.\u00a0 Perhaps the most egregious offenses are the <em>meaningless<\/em> phrases that occupy the majority of ads.\u00a0 Examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Save like never before <em>(I got this product free last week, a 100% savings; are you now going to pay <strong>me<\/strong> to take it?)<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Unbelievable savings <em>(You&#8217;re right\u2014I <strong>don&#8217;t<\/strong> believe it)<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Incredible bargains <em>(Bargains with no credibility; I&#8217;ll be right there)<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Conveniently located <em>(Convenient for me is across the street&#8230;I&#8217;m looking but I don&#8217;t see your store there)<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are just a few.\u00a0 Feel free to supply your own in the comments.<\/p>\n<p>Depending on the size of your station and the local practices, you&#8217;re either occasionally writing ad copy or you&#8217;re writing it every day.\u00a0 Take the time to brush up on alternative words (a thesaurus is a great tool to have within easy reach) and break free of the mediocrity and misuse of our language.\u00a0 Your ads will sound better, and maybe even produce better results.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I heard a commercial on the radio yesterday that made me laugh&#8230;but not because the ad was intended to be funny.\u00a0 It was the type of ad I call &#8220;English-challenged&#8221;&#8230;. <a href=\"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/2008\/12\/20\/a-little-bit-pregnant\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-radio","category-sales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radio3k.com\/rblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}