I’ve written on
this subject before, but the examples just keep coming.<\/p>\n
We
live in a culture in which people don’t always want to come out and say what
they mean – particularly those people who are trying to sell us something.
We’ve always had euphemisms around – “senior” instead of old,
“pre-owned” instead of used, “revenue enhancement” instead
of tax. We all know that a rose by any other name is still a rose – or
a tax, or a used car.<\/p>\n
But the advertisers
seem to be going to new and grander extremes to attempt to convince us that
their products are other than what they appear to be. For example, I was reading
the other day in Direct, a marketing magazine, and they identified some
popular current marketing phrases. I thought I’d share some with you – along
with my interpretation of what they really mean.<\/p>\n
\n“You’ve
been pre-approved” – but we still want you to fill out this six-page
application, and we may not give you a card after all<\/p>\n“Cost recovery
fee” – we want our product to sound cheaper than it really is, so
we’ll just add this on so it sounds like it’s someone else’s fault<\/p>\n“Individual
results may vary” – don’t get your hopes up<\/p>\n“Limited
warranty” – whatever goes wrong with yours isn’t covered<\/p>\n“A national
best – seller” – all my friends and family bought a copy<\/p>\n“New and
improved” – we couldn’t get the first model to work<\/p>\n“With a
few exceptions” – this would be one of those few<\/p>\n“One size
fits all” – just not very well<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nOf course, we
church leaders measure up pretty well to those high – paid marketing types in
our use of language. There is a reason that “ministerially speaking”
tends to mean exaggerated. For example:<\/p>\n\n“What a
glorious Sunday we had!” – several people actually showed up for
a change<\/p>\n“We baptized
six last week!” – if you count the five deacons that fell out of
the boat during the men’s fishing trip<\/p>\n“This will
be a shorter sermon than usual” – don’t count on being at the front
of the buffet line today<\/p>\n“What a
wonderful job Miss Lucy did on our special music this morning” –
be thankful you had your hearing aid turned down<\/p>\n“And finally
. . .” – yeah, sure. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n___________________________<\/p>\n
Michael
Duduit is Editor of Preaching magazine and President of American Ministry
Resources. You can write to him at michael@preaching.com, or visit his website
at www.michaelduduit.com.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nShare This On:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’ve written on this subject before, but the examples just keep coming. We live in a culture in which people don’t always want to come out and say what they mean – particularly those people who are trying to sell us something. We’ve always had euphemisms around – “senior” instead of old, “pre-owned” instead of … Continue reading “A Pre-Owned Rose Is Still A Used Flower”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}