Doing Lines.

The best line in all of American literature (you don't have to agree with me, but it's my blog) was written over a century ago by the great Ring Lardner in a short story called, "The Young Immigrants." It's just four words.

"Shut up," he explained.

The next best sentences come from a couple decades later and were typed in a manic, and probably drunk flurry by Dashiell Hammett in a short story called "The Continental Op." In these stories, Hammett was developing his hard-boiled Sam Spade-like character and he was getting good at it.

It read:

The particular words that get me in the above, besides all of them are there: "I was trying to count how many lies could be found in those nine words, and had reached four, with promise of more,"...

I'll letcha in on a little secret, when I read--whether it's an email, a newspaper article, a website, a Linked In profile, almost anything, I try to count how many lies can be found in the words I read.

Maybe this aggressive cynicism is coming-of-age when Lyndon Johnson was President and when Richard Nixon followed him, with Spiro Agnew as VP. I was brought up looking for lies.

Everywhere.

I remember flying somewhere thirty years ago with my partner. We were flying to some godforsaken place in Kentucky where our client made cheap whiskey. The airline is defunct now, but was called US Air. Naturally, I guess, their slogan was "US Air begins with You."

My partner, on hearing that pablum said at the top of his lungs, "And ends in r." I never heard that slogan the same way again.

Years ago, I worked with Errol Morris who directed some commercials I had written for a client called Ameriprise. Morris insisted on calling them "Ameripants." And he came up with the apt slogan, "We've got our hands in your pockets."

In short, I think a lot of people read words--especially words used in ads--words meant to sell you stuff, and they read them with a certain degree of cynicism.

I think that's a good thing.

More important, I think it's a brief for writers and brands. You have to make your words so unassailable they can withstand the toughest truth checks.

Years ago I inherited an account that had been f'd upped by some cool creatives. Their tagline (which I quickly abandoned) was "It's for people." Duh to the Duh.

Like Hammett's Continental Op above, I can't find one word in that sentence that has meaning to me. I literally don't understand.

One of my least favorite brands in the world is Buick. They've tried to reintroduce, re-frame, re-vitalize the brand about 20 times in the last ten years. For many years, they made a shitty, ugly product which didn't help matters. They've done so many ham-handed commercials through the years as to scare the world off of ham altogether.

Now their cars are decent looking--though I don't know how well they run or what it's like trying to buy one. I can tell you there's not a soul between here and the Upper Lower North Southistan who will be persuaded by their current slogan: 'Exceptional by design.' Again, I have no idea what that li(n)e means.

Not a big point today.

Other than this: words are not merely graphic design. They're not just squiggles that fit somewhere near a logo. They're supposed to have meaning, import, and be memorable.

Oh, and if you can make them "for people," all the better.