This video is to get you in the mood for the post below

(Kvetch Marketing).

Priceless! And now the post...

Kvetch Marketing

If you could learn any new language, what would it be?

My first choice would be Yiddish. Syriac is a close second (Syriously). Yiddish is very expressive and it's filled with delicious neurotic hints. Plus I already know Hebrew, so that helps. And there's the historic argument: Just three generations ago this was the language my family spoke.

But far more important than these trivial facts is the following Yiddish/English sentence I just created:

"Hey Shlemiel! Stop shmoozing with that shmaltzy Shmendrik's shikse. Her spiel is all shtick."

Case closed. I'm learning Yiddish.

Whoah! Wait just a minute.

I just thought of yet another reason: I could become the world expert in Yiddish marketing! Why have I never thought of this before? And to think that all this time I've been competing with thousands of other English language copywriters.

There are 215,000 Yiddish speaking Israelis out there who I should be selling shmaltz herring to.

I'll call my business "Kvetsh Marketing"

It's one of the great things about English: the plethora of foreign loan words. You can express nearly any feeling or emotion with the hundreds of "English" words which are ultimately taken from other cultures and languages.

Suprisingly, (or perhaps not) Yiddish provides a large number of these loan words to English.

I present you with The Yiddish Handbook, 40 words you should know from dailywritingtips.com. Click here for the guide. For a more complete list, check out the 'haimish' wikipedia.

A few of my personal favorites that I use regularly:

2) bissel - a little bit

11) klutz - clumsy person, literally "block of wood"

19) nosh - a light snack

Do these three words sum up my life? Quite possibly.

Words You Can Use: Improvident

Remember those SAT words you had to memorize years ago? Of course you don't! You forgot them the moment the test was over, if not sooner. Well, turns out some of those words are pretty darn useful. No grades given here. No tests. Just words you can use.

One of my very favorite quotes comes from the Babylonian Talmud:

"Who is wise? One who sees what is going to be." (Tractate Tamid 32A)

No, it's not telling us that fortune tellers are smart. Most of them probably aren't. It's teaching us something much more profound: Wisdom is judged by the ability to recognize the consequence of ones actions. What I choose today influences the choices that will present themselves to me tommorow. That's a very empowering lesson!

OK, enough moralizing. What's this got to do with vocabulary words?

I was reminded of this quote today as I read my Merriam-Webster word of the day. The word was 'improvident'.

It refers to the inability to see the future. 'Im-' is the negative prefix. 'Providere' comes from 'pro' which means 'forward' and 'videre' which means 'to see'. Literally, "unable to see forward". Here's the example sentence they give:

"Judy's bankruptcy is the result of several years of improvident borrowing with little thought as to how she would ever manage to repay her debts."

Ok, so you may never use this word as much as "that" or "whatever". But it's still good to know for at least three reasons.

1) It describes succinctly something which is rather common to human experience.

2) It's not a tongue-twister.

3) It would be improvident behavior to not know it for when the proper occasion arises.

Use it in a sentence once a day for a week and you'll remember it.

English Superiority Complex Questioned

I know all 3 of you who are reading had been anxiously awaiting my next post. Stop staring anxiously at your computer screen while hitting the refresh button. It's here.

If it had simply been laziness, I might apologize for my tardiness. But it most definitely was not that. I was actually on a short backpacking trip in Europe with some friends. We went to Paris, Nice and Rome.

A splendid time it was. But since this isn't a travel blog, I won't bore you with details of the 3 am bike ride around Paris, our late night jam with a

Senegalese bongo player on the streets of Nice, or the best Italian food ever in...yep, Italy. I will narrow my focus to linguistics. Specifically French.

I found out that most French people don't like speaking English. Many don't know it and have no desire to change. And that's fine by me. I've gotten over my disdain of French people for their linguistic stubborness. I may still disdain them for other reasons, but that's another story.

I don't expect myself to learn Arabic or Russian in order to communicate with the many people around me who speak those languages. Why should I demand that of the French?

We Americans have an implicit, subconsious sense that everyone in the world should speak our language. And especially Europeans. That is somehow a given to us. Going to France was a slap in the face for me. A healthy slap in the face.

When I travel, I try to take one lesson or insight from each place I visit. This was my French lesson. Only after this visit did I realize how deeply ingrained this linguistic superiority complex is within me. I haven't yet shed myself of this nasty habit, but now I'm much more aware of it.

It especially hit me at the Louvre.

I love the historical element of museums. That sounds funny, but it's true. At museums, I end up spending more time reading the historical background than I do looking at pictures.

But at the Louvre, these text displays are only in one language. French. I didn't know anything about any of the pictures I was looking at! It was terrible. I was forced to actually appreciate them as works of art.

And that's hard to do when you're looking at amateur stuff like the Mona Lisa. Au revoir!

"Divung Prohibited"

I saw this sign at a swimming pool here in Beersheva. Since I didn't know what divung was, I had to assume that it probably wasn't related to the word diving with which we are all familiar. So I dove in. 

For English speakers living in Israel, this is a recurring part of our life: English words misspelled in the public eye. From street signs to menus, brochures to government literature. Nothing is spared. And I am completely torn as to which emotion overcomes me most when I see these mishaps: Depression or sheer ecstasy. 

You see, on the one hand these signs confirm my lack of faith in humanity. How are people so recklessly incompetent that they are unwilling or unable to spellcheck words which will be in public view for the forseeable future? Have they no shame?  

 

But they also never fail to make me laugh. Most decent comedy films won't get the smile out of me that one poorly translated sign can. Want to fall off your chair? Check out these pictures. Hence the ecstasy.

Man, we need a linguistic police department. 

Until that day, I will continue documenting this tragic-comedy right here on my blog. I'll try to find more funny translations and report on them. Hopefully with pictures too.

Great Product Copy - Part 1

Ever pick up a product you've never heard of, read the label, and know immediately that you HAVE to buy it? Usually it's the packaging and design that seal the deal. It just looks too good not to have.

But occasionaly the text alone is so compelling, you're actually happy to part with your last dollar to try it. You don't know the brand, it's really expensive, and frankly, you don't even like granola. But you buy it anyways.

This is the first in a series of posts about these types of goods and services. 

Our first case study is dorset cereals. Here's what I found on the side of their berries and cherries cereal box:

We believe that life really is too short to settle for second best and that simple, honest pleasures are often the most rewarding.

We take delicious things and add some more delicious things, then we blend them together. We try lots of combinations. The ones everyone here likes, we make. 

It's very English to say that life's not a bowl of cherries - however, we'd have to disagree. Living in Dorset has inspired us to add loads of tangy, juicy berries to our bowl, creating this delicious recipe. 

Simple, but then the best things in life usually are. 

I actually read the label twice only because I enjoyed reading it so much. The second paragraph is one of the greatest snippets of copy I've seen on a food product. It's simple, down-to-earth, and it appeals to our intuitive sense of logic:

1) Everyone likes delicious things.

2) The more delicious things the better.

3) Not all delicious things go well together. 

4) We've tried all the options.

5) These delicious things do go well together. 

Have a good example of great product copy that you've seen recently? Please share it with us!

RE: Email Subject Lines Are Important

I used to just ignore the subject line when I wrote emails. Figured nobody reads them anyways, so why bother?

But then I started noticing my own email reading behavior. And I discovered that the first thing I did when I got an email was read the subject line.  

I also discovered that the subject line shaped my entire attitude towards the email:

• Whether I would open it or not
• If I would be interested
• What action I would take after reading the email
  

Ivan Levison suggests that we think of the subject line as as if it were an envelope:

When you're creating a paper direct mail package, you know you have to come up with a  killer envelope. If the envelope doesn't get opened, the letter doesn't get read and you don't make the sale. Same thing with the subject line. It determines whether the prospect will  read your message or trash it.  (The Levison Letter, Vol.22, No.2)

The subject line needs to motivate the reader to act. Make sure that yours are working in your favor!