Ramblings

Bloviating: to you, from me. Chide me if you will. algot@runeman.org

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Thu, 16 Jul 2009

New and Improved

What does it really mean when somebody describes a product as "New and improved"?

If it is new, then the product comes to us for the first time and we take it as it is.

If it is improved, then it cannot be logically "new". Improved tells me that the product we formerly used was made better.

Okay, I am not supposed to worry about such things. It's just an advertisement on the television. Still, somebody paid an undisclosed amount of money to get the ad made. Then it cost more money to get the ad on TV. The words used to describe the product are designed to get me interested enough so I will run out to the store and buy the stuff. Either word used alone works its advertising magic. I guess the copywriter felt that two good individual words deserved to double their power, so he or she combined them in the same sentence.

I suppose the masses of TV viewers won't even notice. Too bad for them. People deserve to have a clear sense of the quality of advertising. It has been frequently proposed as a valuable topic to introduce in schools. Judging ads is good practice for judging the words of politicians during (and sometimes after) campaigns, but that's another topic for another day.