language – Page 7

Miscellany

Copywriting: fail. Advertising: no discernible loss.

Sun, 7 Aug 2011

3 min read

I was on the subway on Friday when I saw the advertisement displayed above.

For readers without image support, the tagline is as follows:

Today’s engineers are solving tomorrow’s problems. Are you ready to be one of them?

I took a picture of it and uploaded it to Facebook and Twitpic with the caption “Bet all you B.Eng grads feel pretty proud of yourselves now, huh”, for I thought such a gloriously humorous error had to be shared with everyone.

Unfortunately, some people didn’t get it. What’s worse, some of the people who didn’t get it immediately thought I was mocking engineers.

Let’s look at the tagline of the ad once more:

Today’s engineers are solving tomorrow’s problems. Are you ready to be one of them?

Explanation:

We know the ad producer’s intention was to ask “Are you ready to be one of [the engineers]?”.
However, “problems” in the first sentence is also a plural noun.
Because the word “them” could also refer to “problems”, it’s possible for the second sentence to be read as “Are you ready to be one of [the problems]?”.

In that case, the ad becomes somewhat humorous: is this educational institute actually recruiting people to train them to become problems for engineers to solve?

So I’d rate the copywriting as having failed on this count. However, in terms of advertising, there’s no discernible loss.

Based on the comments I received, only one person made it clear that he understood what I was referring to.

However, the ad isn’t targeting people like us i.e. arts/humanities graduates with little inclination toward an education or a career in engineering or the sciences.

The rest of the comments came from people who majored in engineering, math or science subjects and are also working in related industries.

Their concerns were either to joke about how engineers are in fact ‘fighting fires’ instead of preventing them, or to be defensive about the perceived slight.

Nevertheless, since they didn’t spot the error (or perhaps the error is only a concern to people who are interested in linguistics), I guess the ad will still manage to reach out to its target audience.

Post-script: On hindsight, actually, the biggest failure in terms of communication and humour are actually mine alone.

Sigh. In the future, I shall just stick at doing what I do best i.e. re-tweeting what people are saying about The Weight of Silk on Skin.

Post-post-script: I misread a comment!

A math graduate/teacher just texted me to clarify this interpretation he provided:

This is an ad for BSs and BSc, not BEng. The alternate reading [that B.Ss. and B.Sc. graduates are/will be the bane of engineers] actually makes more sense in light of that fact.

POSKOD.SG: Ten Steps to Communicating Effectively.

Thu, 26 May 2011

2 min read

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My latest article on POSKOD.SG, the latest big thing to hit our shores.

Ten Steps to Communicating Effectively.
A guide to winning over friends and contacts in Singapore. (Mostly contacts.)

Besides playing good football and making babies, there is nothing else that we on the Little Red Dot are better at than communicating effectively.

And for good reason too: what in the world could be more Merlion-esque than saying something that one means?

In any case, here are ten steps to effective communication, the Singaporean way.

When conversing, the first thing you want to do is to include people in the conversation. Hence, name-drop or insert as many obscure allusions as you can into your speech:

“Yes, Delia said the same thing about the Blue Paper. In fact, she said it was similar to the Green Grass Policy implemented back in ’08.”

If people don’t get it, show amusement. The is best displayed through subtle upward spasms of the muscles between the upper lip and the cheek:

“You… don’t know Delia?” *twitch* “Oh, right – you weren’t on the Remaking WLB committee with us.”

Use acronyms. They are the PIE to life in the fast lane during AM rush-hour traffic, just before SUVs go past the ERP gantry:

“WLB, WLB! What part of WLB do you not understand?”

(continued…)

Miscellany

How are you looking at information today?

Fri, 6 May 2011

2 min read

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Today, before you open the newspaper, turn on the radio or switch on the television, I’d like you to take the time to plough through these two articles:

If you are of the TL;DR ilk, here is a quick primer:

What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)?
From the first article, CDA is a way of looking at things to “stud[y] the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context”.
Why is a knowledge of CDA necessary?
Unbeknownst to many, language IS power. He or she who controls the words, controls the minds of they who read what is written, watch what is shown or hear what is said.

CDA is thus necessary “to understand, expose, and ultimately resist social inequality”.
What are some examples of an application of CDA?
- Looking at how pictures are used in, say, a newspaper. Are some pictures of certain people unflattering to them? Why is this so? Was there a larger intention in portraying them as such?
- Comparing how words are used to describe people e.g. when comparing three people of the same standing, Person X is called “fresh-faced”, Person Y is called “innocent”, while Person Z is called “naive”. All three words are synonyms. However, has Person X been given a more positive image? Why?
- Assessing coverage, or the quantity of information reporting done on a particular topic or subject. Is one topic or subject given more ‘air-time’ than another? Why?

For those of you who have the time, you may want to, say, practice analysing and evaluating information from articles, reports, etc. that have been published – in print or otherwise – over the last one week or so.

With this knowledge, I hope you are more equipped to deal with any new information that might come your way, today or in the future.

Tag - language