I saw a business the other day whose sign read..."By Appointment Only...Walk Ins Welcome" and "Frozen Hot Chocolate."
As far as the first one goes I figure you could walk in, make an appointment for sometime in the next minute or two and maybe that will work. As far as frozen hot chocolate, isn't that a chocolate fudge bar or a popsicle?
AJ
7 comments:
That's funny!
One of my favorite signs is/was at the Science Museum of MN's parking lot. It read, simply: "lock your doors. Carry your valuables. Lot patroled by security."
I never did trust those "security" people.
Not entirely unrelated, recently I read a wonderful book called "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" – a fun and quick read about punctuation. Although it does spend time talking about the proper uses of the semi-colon, full stop, brackets and what-not, it is absolutely delightful.
The title of the book is taken from the story of a panda who walks into a diner. He sits down and orders lunch. When he is finished, he pulls out a gun and starts shooting up the place. When the waiter asks him what he was doing, the bear throws him a dictionary and says, "I'm a panda. Look it up." Under Panda, the book says: "a large, bear like mammel ... eats shoots and leaves."
The only downside to reading this book is you will start to notice, both in your writing and the writing around you, that the world is filled with questionable uses of puntuation: statements that make otherwise normal statements non-sensical or down-right hysterical. (and you will find you use dashes, hyphens, colons and semi-colons much more often!).
Matt-I find that I tend to write for the ear, not the eye. I wonder if that would change.
I've been reading books by the Wizard of Ads and I will be changing the way I write ad copy because of his writings and teachings. I hope to take one of his online courses for writing in the future.
I'll have to get a copy of that book.
I love it!
And that book sounds right up my alley!
I write for the ear also – although it is typically my ear that I am writing for (aka – what sounds good to me). I have decidely different writing styles when I am writing what "sounds" good vs. copywriting for an ad.
I am under the impression you have spent many years writing for The Ear (aka – radio). That said, I would have to believe that your writing would change, although I would think it would become "more correct."
But what do I know?
Matt-when I was writing news, that was much different than writing commercial copy. And what I am learning now is lot of the 'rules' for copy writing stink.
Most radio stations and broadcast companies spend lots of money in training their sales departments to better sell the clients. One thing thay don't do is train anyone to write better ads. I've always felt the better the ads we create, the more people the advertising will affect. The more response and results the advetiser will get. But very few teach how to create better ads.
I want to write better ads. I tend to think the better ads I write, the better response my clients will get and the longer I sell the less selling I'll have to do and the more writing to update copy. I want to get to that magic place where I more maintain my clients, train new sales people and build for the long term and not strive for short term satsfaction.
If I can build for the long term with better writing, maybe in 20 years I can look back and see all the good I have been able to help my clients achieve.
Maybe just maybe.
By the way, the two best for teaching how to creat and write better ads? Dan O'day and Roger Williams. Dan O'Day's web site is danoday.com and Roger Williams is wizardacademy.org.
That should be Roy Williams, not Roger.
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