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Sunday 29 June 2014

Sunday Rest: brandter. Word Not To Use Today.

I'm in a perfect position to write about this word: a position, that is, of perfect ignorance.

I have no idea at all what brandter means (though I'm going to look it up in a minute).

My guess is that it's something to do with banter, which used to mean jolly talk but is often nowadays used as an excuse for insult and (sometimes) threats.

Brandter also has brand in it, so I would say that brandter is jolly talk for some sort of business advantage.

I'm going to look it up, now, and see how close I am. Back in a second...

...

...oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear...

Hideously, I was right. The only thing I didn't realise is that brandter is performed via social media. Apparently the most important thing business people can do is publicise their brand, and ideally you do it amusingly in the form of brandter.

Fancy. And there I was thinking the most important thing people in business could do was to try to produce something beautiful, useful, and of high quality.

Ah well. That explains where I've been going wrong, then.

Word Not To Use Today: brandter. This is a word invented by people who don't care all that much about the beauty, utility and quality of their product.

SONG HUNTER by SALLY PRUE: possibly the best book about the dawning of creativity in a Neanderthal community published in the last couple of years or so.




3 comments:

  1. At least this hideous word matches the hideous idea.

    I recently got some Lexicolatry t-shirts printed ... and ... umm ... the funny thing is ... umm ...

    Oh my. It's actually quite hard to write something witty about your own brand. I suddenly feel an awkward respect for skilled brandterists.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, oh, oh ... !

      Today on Lexicolatry I had a wale of a time writing about corduroy ...

      Umm ...

      No ... it's too obscure. And not funny. And who even knows what a wale is?

      Professional brandterist - yet another career door closed to me.

      Delete
    2. If that was the standard of bad pun out there then Twitter would be worth looking at much more often.

      Lexicolatry: a blog of a different stripe.

      And well worth checking out, too.

      Delete

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