Words lose meaning with over use
March 30th, 2006 by Bill
I wandered over to Gapingvoid and saw that the word “cool” (as in, “cool prizes“) isn’t the only word that needs to be turfed from the copywriting lexicon. I see we need a new word to replace “luxury.”
Hugh writes, “One of the most unpleasant jobs I ever had was writing a 10,000 word brochure for a luxury 60-foot yacht.”
Yup. Been there. For me it was a downtown “upscale” mall. Good grief. I remember they were very big on the word “value.” Everyone seemed to be back then. You couldn’t find any ads anywhere that didn’t have a reference to value. So I asked them, “What kind of value?” They didn’t know or care. Just value. But it always struck me that if you had a product with value that value could as easily be lousy as good. It needs some kind of modifier (but please, not “great”).
Anyway … the real problem is over using a term. When everyone is using a word (as in Hugh’s case, “luxury”) it loses meaning and impact. And it makes me want to tear my hair out.
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