123rf.com: Inga Linder
As my regular readers know, I’m very fond of the marketing advice purveyed by Marcia Yudkin of The Marketing Minute. (https://www.yudkin.com/markmin.htm). In a post written a little over a year ago, she discusses a restaurant in Maryland that got no responses to an employment ad for cashiers until the owners added the word “spunky” to the description.
The point is that one work can make one heck of a difference to anything you write. Using a single word—as the restaurant in Maryland did—“described the attitude they were looking for and the vibe of the business so vividly that applicants showed up in droves.”
Ms. Yudkin also notes that you can “refurbish” a word with negative connotations, and she says “For an outsized kick from a single word, your word must be unexpected, immediately understandable and emotionally charged.” I love that. Don’t you?
In fact, I’m thinking of describing my proofreading services as embodying a “spinsterish” approach to copy perfection. What do you think?
Have you run across any examples of interesting or unexpected word use lately?
Leave a Comment