Date:    Sun, 29 Mar 1998 17:28:57 -0500
<br>From:    Beverly Flanigan  flanigan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU 
<br>Subject: Re: RE Re: Think Different
<br>
<br>The adjective/adverb debate is not off-topic at all, but we need to keep
<br>our perspective straight.  First of all, ad agencies neither influence
<br>usage (goodly or badly) nor do they "break grammar rules" and "get away
<br>with their brazen attempts to cover grammatical errors"--they simply do
<br>what ordinary people in large measure do, and nobody notices but us.
<br>"Winstons taste good like a cigarette should" may have shocked a few of us
<br>in the '50s (myself included, as a prescriptivist high schooler who always
<br>corrected her parents' speech--shame on me), but it hardly shaped a
<br>long-coming change from conjunctive 'as' to 'like'; and writers to ADS
<br>recently have acknowledged that they now accept 'like'.  Finally, one
<br>writer said he urges students to "think different [adj?] and write
<br>different [adv]."  An MA student of mine from Pittsburgh regularly omitted
<br>the -ly (as most people do in this area) until it was called to his
<br>attention during his PhD studies at Penn (but not by Labov, who directed
<br>his dissertation).  He had, of course, never noticed the "omission" before.
<br> Why didn't I "correct" it when I had him captive for two years?  Of course
<br>I did, for formal writing; but that hardly changed his underlying usage
<br>system.
<br>
<br>
<br>At 01:08 PM 3/28/98 -0500, you wrote:
<br> I love the slogan "Think Different", the campaign, the product, and pretty
<br>much agree with Greg's analysis of acceptability, but I blame the folks at
<br>Chiat/Day for the missing "ly."
<br> 
<br> Folks at Chiat/Day, like advertising people everywhere, prefer to think of
<br>themselves as exceptional beings who break rules for the betterment of
<br>society. Sometimes they do it because they get a kick out of it, like
<br>shoplifting when you're 12 or driving way too fast or crossing in the
<br>middle of the street against traffic.
<br> 
<br> The ad agency I work for recently helped Carvel, an ice cream company
<br>located primarily in the northeast, launch a campaign for a small ice cream
<br>cake designed to celebrate life's smaller successes. My peers decided to
<br>call it "Little Love" but they wanted something a little more unique. So,
<br>it was put up for a vote as to whether it would be "Li'l Love" or "Lil'Love."
<br> 
<br> Naturally, the horrendous name "Lil'Love" is now plastered across
<br>television, newspapers, radio, point of purchase displays and product
<br>packaging. Nobody can tell me if there is a point to the apostrophe, or why
<br>there isn't another one, or what was the problem with "Li'l Love." I know
<br>the answers: they don't know, except they were breaking a rule and it felt
<br>good.
<br> 
<br> But like people in advertising everywhere, my coworkers tend to break the
<br>safe rules, the ones they can get away with and still get a good night's
<br>sleep. They break grammar rules.
<br> 
<br> Advertising folks like to say, "Well, in advertising you can get away with
<br>that" but I dont think advertising actually gets away with anything.
<br>Advertising people think they get away with things, but really, the world
<br>is laughing at advertising folk's vain attempts to be God-like, such as
<br>putting an apostrophe in the wrong place.
<br> 
<br> They also dont get away with their brazen attempts to cover grammatical
<br>errors with cries of "It Tastes Good, Like a Cigarette Should!" as if to
<br>say, "Look, an old grammar flub! Our grammar flub is, therefore, tradition!"
<br> 
<br> Regarding the success of the Apple campaign: its success is phenomenal,
<br>and serendipitous circumstances are reinforcing it. The product is selling
<br>faster than Apple can keep up, the stock is at a 52-week high, the company
<br>had its first profitable quarter out of the last five, the Windows/PC
<br>magazines are giving Apple grudging but glowing product reviews, Intel is
<br>in psychological retreat (besides suffering its first serious financial
<br>problems in a while and its CEO resigning), Microsoft is fighting the
<br>Justice Dept. and battling a torrent of complaints about product delays and
<br>security failures, scalability and reliability of Windows NT. Apple is
<br>doing very well, and, as it is one of only two brands that I have any
<br>loyalty to at all (the other is Levi jeans), I am glad.
<br> 
<br>