ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

I think I've heard as many as four repeats of a contact number at the end of a radio spot.

Radio ads were the worst for me, especially when the client wanted to end the spot with "Call 1-800-264-5518. That's 1-800-264-5518." at the end of a :30.

― pplains, Friday, 8 July 2016 14:43 (51 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah that's annoying but luckily most clients use web addresses instead of phone numbers these days.

There are still issues though:

- client can't get their head around the difference between aural and text media, insisting you base the radio campaign on the phrasing in their marketing dept's hardcopy ad. this always ends up sounding stiff and unnatural.
- they are addicted to adding words and phrases where they aren't necessary, taking up precious airtime and making the actor rush through sentences.
- they want you to use a script they've written themselves which is ALWAYS based around a conversation in a cafe with two people, one of whom seems to know an inordinate amount of information about the product on offer - 'I'm looking for a new car' / 'Well, did you know that Mazda Swindon are offering 0% finance on brand new Mazdas for as little as £20,000?' / 'That's amazing!' / 'Yes - they come with power steering and airbags fitted as standard' / 'How can I book a test drive?' / 'There website is 'Mazda dash dealership dash Swindon dot co dot uk' etc....

Often a client can't get their head around the fact there's a difference between an ad being read like a print ad, and an ad being read out loud over the radio. Turning your carefully-crafted clauses into sentences that are three-times longer is one thing.

Clients will also insist you base your copy on their hardcopy print advert from their marketing department, which always ends up sounding stiff and natural.

Sometimes they'll send you their own idea for an advert and it's ALWAYS two people sitting in a cafe discussing the product, saying lines that no one would ever say in real life. One of the people

oops, that post came out a bit weird. no wonder i work in radio ads... i'll never be a proper copy writer.

Record your posts as audio and post them to Soundcloud, we won't mind.

i have a special love for local radio ads because they are usually so bad and cheesy. my favorite radio station only has local advertisers and it's 20% "do you or someone you love have a problem with addiction?" (this ad is pretty effective), 20% treatment for ED (erectile, not eating disorders) and that one focuses on men whose "performance suffers" and at least 40% varicose vein treatment, in which an exasperated woman asks listeners if they have "embarrassing, ugly varicose or spider veins" and whether or not this has affected their ability to wear shorts and skirts. there are also ads for local frozen pizza purveyors and casinos :-/

the ED ad promises that this medicine is free to the first 75 people who take advantage of this special offer and has been running for at least 5 months
lol

Jesus itd want to be very good to encourage me to run for five months first

no the ad has been running for 5 months, not the candidates for treatment -- they will accept ED patients who are obese, diabetic, depressed, or have a host of other maladies. they say so right in the ad!

I know it was a lazy pun (and worst of all itt it was grammatically licentious)

Meanwhile I can't quite get this headline out of my mind:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/woman-charged-with-luring-children-for-sex-with-ice-cream-popcorn/2016/07/07/a637fb6e-444f-11e6-88d0-6adee48be8bc_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-moreheds_abuse-1240pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

I know it's an actually horrible human child abuse story but all I can see is "sex with ice cream."

LG how did u get this gig where you get paid for linguistic filigree? is it an upwork type deal or do you have ~connections~?

i have a special love for local radio ads because they are usually so bad and cheesy. my favorite radio station only has local advertisers and it's 20% "do you or someone you love have a problem with addiction?" (this ad is pretty effective), 20% treatment for ED (erectile, not eating disorders) and that one focuses on men whose "performance suffers" and at least 40% varicose vein treatment, in which an exasperated woman asks listeners if they have "embarrassing, ugly varicose or spider veins" and whether or not this has affected their ability to wear shorts and skirts. there are also ads for local frozen pizza purveyors and casinos :-/

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Friday, 8 July 2016 15:40 (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's interesting because we can't really advertise cosmetic treatments without a heap of Ts & Cs and some serious scrutiny from the Radiocentre regulator here in the UK. Also we consider it bad form to start a radio ad with a closed question such as 'do you suffer from varicose veins?' because listeners will immediately respond with a 'no' and stop listening. I get the impression UK commercial radio is a bit different to how it works in the US though.

yeah apparently! i'll have to listen more closely to see if they lead with that question or if it's the special prize somewhere in the middle. it's possible that she starts off with "I used to LOVE wearing shorts and summer skirts, but …."

my point was that the language used in the vein commercial was overtly shame-based and the ED commercial was just matter of fact, like "got this problem? got these other problems too? don't sweat it, we can help" and there was no "ugly, embarrassing loss of erectile function" whatsoever.

my life would be more complete if the ED ad started that way -- "I used to love [florid but radio-friendly description of passionate sex], but then…"

In one of my many past professional lives I wrote pharma ad copy - not for the drugs themselves, but to recruit clinical trial participants.

Dog latin is right that "do you suffer from x" is a really lazy start, but sometimes you do want to reach just that slice of population and no one else. Sometimes we had to find very specific populations (older African Americans at risk for shingles, women in Pittsburgh with Crohn's disease, left-handed diabetic dentists from Sweden, etc.).

You can cast the widest possible net, hoping to screen out the candidates you _don't_ want later. Or you can delve down into the mysterious world of hyper-targeted advertising where you're trying to find out what television shows might be popular among younger Latinos with toe fungus.

LG how did u get this gig where you get paid for linguistic filigree? is it an upwork type deal or do you have ~connections~?

a guy i work with put me in touch with them. it seemed like they were into what i did but faik i might never get work from them again. it did make me want to do more.

my life would be more complete if the ED ad started that way -- "I used to love [florid but radio-friendly description of passionate sex], but then…"

"not man enough to get it up? don't worry, scientists have found a chemical which make it possible for you to have FULL intercourse several more times before you die."

"simply ingest this chemical prior to the planned time of (full) intercourse and you'll find your sexual organs function correctly once again! that's right! full intercourse the way you may remember it!"

"viagra: for when not penetrating willing recipients isn't a choice you want to be forced to make..."

Even if you suffer from diabetes, high blood pressure, or depression? YES SIR! These maladies will not stop you from providing chemical enhancement to your boner to the point where you can go ahead and use it again! [testimonial] "I just love using my boner again, it's great to get rid of that pesky ED!"

what has become of my life

yeah sorry everyone

maybe worth it for the mild satisfaction of using lady-language to talk about boner improvement

i was gonna manspread on the subway the other day but then i noticed with horror that i didn't have a florid, rock-hard boner

what has become of my life

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, July 14, 2016 4:17 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I <3 u

"I just love using my boner again"

sold

adventures in radio copywriting: http://sabotagetimes.com/life/superscreen-the-best-radio-commercial-ever

quick, help needed pls!
this "should no longer have been provided" vs this "should have no longer been provided"
which is correct? been looking at it so long they both look wrong.

latter is split infinitive if you care about that sort of thing, and the first sounds better to my ears

First sounds better of those two. But I might try to recast it. "We should not have continued providing chipmunks with rocket launchers," or more conversationally, "We shouldn't have been providing chipmunks with rocket launchers anymore. Our bad!"

cheers
That's what I was thinking but hesitated to correct it..

I only realised today that it's "for old times' sake" rather than "for old time's sake".

someone used 'polyamorous' when they meant 'polymorphous'

how perverse!

Please don't use apostrophes to denote plurals

A noble but losing battle in the arena of restaurant marquees and menus across America.

apostrophe's are fun

http://www.cjr.org/the_feature/copy-editor-internet-celebrity.php?Newsletter

Admittedly, the copy editor’s lot generally remains a lonely one; whether working in graphite or keystroke, practitioners don’t often endear themselves to their writers. Ask John McIntyre, who served two terms as president of ACES from 2001 to 2005. Recently, he recalled the organization’s first conference 20 years ago in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for CJR.

“There were maybe 300 people,” he says, “and someone said that was probably the largest gathering of copy editors in one place in history. I came back and told that to my wife. And she said, ‘Except in hell.’”

awww that makes me sad. As a former line editor, I counted on and blamed copyeditors in equal measure. Most valuable role ever to everyone else on the editorial team.

I said line editor and meant content editor. Like, I was supposed to make the science correct, not having to worry excessively over the dotting and crossing. But it was also nice not to have the final word, i.e. "I dunno it wasn't my job to review final draft, sorry u have problem,*shrug*"

"In contrast, patients with acute aortic regurgitation have a small left ventricular cavity and cannot significantly increase forward stroke volume to accommodate for the regurgitant blood flow"

using accommodate as an intransitive verb here is really weak, right?

compensate?

yeah that's definitely a better choice

One would never say "accommodate for." I would either say "accommodate" or "allow for."

"Compensate for" is fine as English but I'm not sure it's synonymous with "accommodate." Compensating carries the connotation of counteracting, while "accommodate" just means "make room."

Also I'd probably change "significantly" to "sufficiently." In order of preference I'd probably suggest:

1. "Patients... cannot sufficiently increase forward stroke volume to allow for the regurgitant blood flow."

2. "Patients... cannot sufficiently increase forward stroke volume to accommodate the regurgitant blood flow."

2. "Patients... cannot sufficiently increase forward stroke volume to compensate for the regurgitant blood flow."

YMP otm.

Ya it's the for that's great issue there

That and autocorrect

Another possibility (which occurred to me a second too late) is "...HANDLE the regurgitant blood flow."

Handle, a good honest Anglo-Saxon word.

"allow for" might make sense grammatically but is nonsensical given the medical physiology the sentence is describing

for similar reasons i don't like just using accommodate as a transitive verb -- increasing stroke volume is an active counter-response of the heart, not a passive one. "compensate for" world better for this reason -- "overcome" might be ok too. sentence probably just needs to be recast