Welcome to Smart Start À La Carte. This is your à la carte path to linguistic excellence. Each edition includes an impressive array of ways to make an impression. Some are simple specific spoon-fed examples that you can slide into your daily dialog. Some are a description or definition of a pattern, concept or category of persuasive communication with an example, of course.
“Delicious Rich Chocolate” “Warm Red Colors” “Soft Sumptuous Feel” “Cool Jazzy Sound” | Obvious enough for you? You never knew adjectives could be so sexy. Wants more, they sell.
Ever seen Home Shopping Network? QVC? ShopNBC? Rachael Ray? (Yes. Rachael Ray.) Watch them for an hour and you’ll soon discover why they’re so popular and sell a ton on TV.
Why watch them even though I just gave you the why? Because you’ll soon be impressed with how easy it is to do in whatever field you’re in. Because only then can you realize, really realize, how loaded a statement can be and still sound so natural.
Take paper, for example. Georgia Pacific Premium Ink Jet & Laser Paper. HP All-In-One Printing Paper. You’d have thought before reading this that paper was not an excellent example. But, if you can apply it to something as banal and dry as paper, then seriously, you can apply it to anything.
FYI – That was an example.
Can you go overboard with them? Yes. But, don’t.
Use the perfect amount. Too much is too much. Keep it simple.
And, now for a 2nd helping. Open wide.
Greek Rhetorical Device | onomatopeia: Snap Crackle Pop! Into your morning. Extremely appropriate timing for this example as I look at my timepiece and notice it’s Monday morning.
Sound, what a wonderful way to start the day. And, what a wonderful way to start to say, “cha-ching!”
e.g. What benefit do you want your customers to feel “snap” that fast?
Whoa! There is even a website by the name Snap Crackle Pop. This one is quite catty, though, hissss. And, my Language Hacker Award even starts out with one.
Yep, Onomatopoeias have definitely gone mainstream.
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The character of a person with the adjectives that can normally use in conversation are learned. – Mark Twain
Let’s try that a different way.
A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
Mark Twain
Cliches and adjectives permeated my prose.
Dick Schaap
In English we must use adjectives to distinguish the different kinds of love for which the ancients had distinct names.
Mortimer Adler
To think straight, it is advisable to expect all qualities and attributes, adjectives, and so on to refer to at least two sets of interactions in time.
Gregory Bateson
Photo Credit: Artnow314 on Flickr
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