A lot of copywriters hate puns. The poor pun has been getting picked on left, right and centre since the new school of advertising arrived in the 1970s. Still, the pun is not my most hated entity in the world of advertising copy. I do enjoy a good bad pun; the ones that make your toes curl they are so bad never fail to please me. They’re like a guilty pleasure I indulge in when no-one’s looking. I know they’re bad but I can’t help myself.

However, there are some words and phrases that genuinely irritate me when I see them in ads. For some reason, depsite the utter misery they bring to a sentence, they seem to be rather prolific. For example:

Experience
Discover
Imagine
Explore
Believe
Inspire
There is better way to _______
See things from a different perspective
The art of _______
The best kept secret in _______
Tomorrow’s ______ today

These are lazy. They’re worse than lazy. There are just under 200,000 words used in the English language so why do these keep popping up so frequently in ads? Just to back up my argument here are some examples:

“Discover”

Another “Discover”

“The art of”

“There’s a better way to”

Claire Connachan is a junior copywriter who suffers from a love of pun affliction. She is currently polishing up her book in order to weed out any puns that might have crept in by accident.

Article Tags: cliches | copywriting | lazy copywriting | puns
Filed under: Creative, advertising, copywriting