A simple desultory philipic.

A friend pointed me in the direction of this article from Adweek about our industry's glee when it comes to creating words that are jargon at best and deceptive at worst. The article asks select industry-quasi-luminaries to "create and define a marketing-related catchword or phrase, e.g., incentivize." The words they come up with are pretty good, er, bad. Read the article here: http://www.adweek.com/aw/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003674396

But as bad as internal agency speak is, what's worse is when agency-generated blather appears in ads. For years, in chrome script on the glove box of Lincoln Town Cars were the words "Ride engineered." Oh, ok, I always thought the Town Car was flight-engineered. Some years ago, flying back from a client on USAir, my partner and I survived a horrific flight. As we were "deplaning" the flight attendant came on the PA and said, "Remember, USAir begins with You." And my usually laconic partner shouted at the stupidity of that line by saying, "And ends in R."

My refrain is simple. Bullshit is a virus. Avoid it.

BTW, I know the location of the epicenter of BS. But I'm not telling unless you ask.