Consuming Humor.
All of us at one point or another have been victims of turncoat words. An experience I had with one etched a scar on my psyche. In teaching a class about creating commercials, I was explaining that commercials gain effectiveness if selling appeals are presented in a climactic order. To illustrate I said, "Suppose you are emphasizing the features that make the car you are selling particularly attractive looking. You might begin by mentioning the sporty wire wheels, move to the two-tone color design, then reach your climax on the foam-rubber cushions." There was a moment of dreadful silence before the class exploded into uncontrollable laughter.
Sometimes, however, humor creeps in unexpectedly because copywriters fail to detect the double meanings hidden in their commercials. The people who produced the following radio commercials probably wished they has reviewed their copy more carefully.
"When I see a housewife who does her own cleaning and still has soft, pretty hands, I know she has been using her head."
"Try this remarkably effective cough syrup. We guarantee you'll never get any better."
...How can one explain the obtuseness of a supposedly sophisticated office manager who became upset at the personal use some staff members were making of the copy machine assigned to the secretary? To put a stop to the practice, he posted a sign: "Employees are not to tamper with the secretary's reproductive equipment without my express permission."
Phrases and clauses that appear in the wrong order can cause as much havoc as ill-chosen or misplaced single words. Readers undoubtedly blinked when a news item described a robber as "a five-foot ten-inch man with a heavy moustache weighing 155 to 160 pounds." A newspaper report summarizing the results of an explosion could be even more startling. "No one was injured in the blast, which was attributed to a build-up of gasses by one town official."
A father probably should have rethought his choice of words and the order in which he used them when he admonished his children to "Help your mother when she mops up the floor by mopping up the floor with her." That, one hopes, would not appeal to any suppressed desire, but this instruction in a bulletin for employees might. "Submit your expense reports promptly with the required receipts attached to your department head."
Pronouns that are unclear about the nouns they replace can magnify the muddling effect of misplaced phrases and clauses. The following news item might lead some readers into a wrong inference. "The Queen smashed a champagne bottle against the prow of the ship, and the crowd cheered as she slid majestically into the sea."
-How To Be Funny On Purpose: Creating and Consuming Humor by Edgar E. Willis
All of us at one point or another have been victims of turncoat words. An experience I had with one etched a scar on my psyche. In teaching a class about creating commercials, I was explaining that commercials gain effectiveness if selling appeals are presented in a climactic order. To illustrate I said, "Suppose you are emphasizing the features that make the car you are selling particularly attractive looking. You might begin by mentioning the sporty wire wheels, move to the two-tone color design, then reach your climax on the foam-rubber cushions." There was a moment of dreadful silence before the class exploded into uncontrollable laughter.
Sometimes, however, humor creeps in unexpectedly because copywriters fail to detect the double meanings hidden in their commercials. The people who produced the following radio commercials probably wished they has reviewed their copy more carefully.
"When I see a housewife who does her own cleaning and still has soft, pretty hands, I know she has been using her head."
"Try this remarkably effective cough syrup. We guarantee you'll never get any better."
...How can one explain the obtuseness of a supposedly sophisticated office manager who became upset at the personal use some staff members were making of the copy machine assigned to the secretary? To put a stop to the practice, he posted a sign: "Employees are not to tamper with the secretary's reproductive equipment without my express permission."
Phrases and clauses that appear in the wrong order can cause as much havoc as ill-chosen or misplaced single words. Readers undoubtedly blinked when a news item described a robber as "a five-foot ten-inch man with a heavy moustache weighing 155 to 160 pounds." A newspaper report summarizing the results of an explosion could be even more startling. "No one was injured in the blast, which was attributed to a build-up of gasses by one town official."
A father probably should have rethought his choice of words and the order in which he used them when he admonished his children to "Help your mother when she mops up the floor by mopping up the floor with her." That, one hopes, would not appeal to any suppressed desire, but this instruction in a bulletin for employees might. "Submit your expense reports promptly with the required receipts attached to your department head."
Pronouns that are unclear about the nouns they replace can magnify the muddling effect of misplaced phrases and clauses. The following news item might lead some readers into a wrong inference. "The Queen smashed a champagne bottle against the prow of the ship, and the crowd cheered as she slid majestically into the sea."
-How To Be Funny On Purpose: Creating and Consuming Humor by Edgar E. Willis
My conclusion was never to sell out the study of psychology to the marketing world. But to be funny instead certainly takes some degree of training.
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