Word: sloganized
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Seven Is Tops. The word "slogan," from the Gaelic sluagh (army) and gairm (a call), originally meant a call to arms-and some of history's most stirring slogans, from "Erin go bragh" to "Remember Pearl Harbor" have been just that. In peacetime, argues Hayakawa, electorates respond more readily to slogans that promise change, since people are rarely satisfied with things as they are. One notable exception was the catch phrase that helped return Britain's Tory Party to power in 1959: "You never had it so good." In general, though, Democrats, like detergent manufacturers, favor slogans that...
...fully effective, say psychologists, a slogan should express a single idea in seven words or less. "It is a psychological fact," says Harvard's Gordon Allport, "that seven is the normal limit of rote memory." (Example: telephone numbers.) Whether plugging cat food or a candidate, sloganeers lean heavily on such verbal devices as alliteration ("Korea, Communism, Corruption"), rhyme ("All the way with L.B.J."), or a combination of both ("Tippecanoe and Tyler Too").* Other familiar standbys are paradox ("We have nothing to fear but fear itself"), metaphor ("Just the kiss of the hops"), metonymy ("The full dinner pail"), parody...
...Boomerang. "Knocking" slogans, in adman's parlance, are apt to be risky-though pollsters find that the "carpetbagger" label has been damaging to Robert Kennedy's senatorial campaign in New York. By failing to repudiate promptly a supporter's denunciation of "rum, Romanism and rebellion" in 1884, James G. Elaine lost New York's electoral votes and the presidential election against Grover Cleveland. Barry Goldwater has probably lost votes by charging that Lyndon Johnson is "soft on Communism"-an inflammatory Republican slogan a decade ago, but now a burnt-out cliché. Another Goldwater slogan that...
...compelling, a slogan must above all be simple. Its acceptance, says University of Houston Psychologist Richard Evans, "is rooted in man's basic intolerance for ambiguity." But it doesn't always work that way. One of the most successful slogans in recent years was a "Vote for clean water" campaign in St. Louis, which led many citizens to believe that a proposed $95 million bond issue would be spent to purify their drinking water. In fact, it was intended to reduce pollution of the Mississippi River downstream from the city, but confused St. Louisans passed the bond issue...
...Tyler was the Whig vice-presidential candidate in 1840. "Tippecanoe" was used to glamorize Gentleman Farmer William Henry Harrison, who had scored a dubious victory over the Indians in a skirmish at Tippecanoe Creek 29 years earlier, but routed Martin Van Buren in the election. A more forgettable Whig slogan affirmed: "With Tip and Tyler we'll bust Van's biler...