This came up in today's reading.

slogan - from Scots slogorne, battle cry, from Gaelic sluagh-ghairm: sluagh=host + gairm=shout

A good slogan sticks in the mind. What are some that stick in yours? Some that come to me are,

• When it rains, it pours.
• Look Ma, no cavities.
• We try harder.

What makes a slogan a good one?

What makes a slogan a good one?

Ask the man who owns one


[This message was edited by jerry thomas on Wed Aug 20th, 2003 at 21:57.]

Here are the top ten slogans of the century, but it is hard to say what sticks and what doesn't. It has to be short, something specific about the product, and here's the hard one: catchy.

[Why do I think Richard will disagree with number 4? ]

Not only do I disagree with number four - I disagree with the list!

This is a list of the top US slogans, not the world's slogans. That 90+% of the world that just happens not to have been born in the USA would certainly disagree and, indeed, many of the slogans will be quite unknown. I had never heard of numbers 7 - 10 and neither had I heard of any of the honourable mentions except the Thompson's Yellow Pages.

How about such world-class slogans as:

Guinness is good for you (Irish)
The best car in the world (Rolls-Royce - British)
Loose talk costs lives - be like dad - keep mum (wartime exhortation - British)
The name on the world's finest blades (Wilkinson sword - British)
Vorsprung durch tecknic (Audi - German)

Richard English

The Oxford Dictionary of 20th Century Quotations has some good ones.

And all because the lady loves Milk Tray

Australians wouldn't give a XXXX for anything else.

(For the benefit of non-Brits that's a Castlemaine slogan and it's pronounced Four-ecks)

Beanz meanz Heinz.

Go to work on an egg.

Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet.
(And I'm a lifelong non smoker - note you don't have to approve of the product to appreciate the advertising !)

I'm only here for the beer.
(Double Diamond ad, a prettty awful brew.)

Let your fingers do the walking.
(Yellow Pages ad)

--------------

I'm not sure but I think the Vorsprung durch technik slogan was only used in the UK and I'm fairly certain that the XXXX slogan for Castlemain was also UK only - never used in Australia.

Non curo ! Si metrum no habet, non est poema.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

[This message was edited by BobHale on Thu Aug 21st, 2003 at 3:07.]

Sorry, you are right, Richard, those slogans are American. Likewise, I have never heard or most of yours or Bob's.

Are "slogans" and "mottos" synomyms? [Yes, Bob, I am talking "synonyms" and not entries in the thesaurus!] I looked them both up, and the definitions seem indistinguishable to me. A motto is defined (on dictionary.com) as: "A brief statement used to express a principle, goal, or ideal", while a slogan is defined as: "A phrase expressing the aims or nature of an enterprise, organization, or candidate; a motto."

My favorite: "The incredible edible egg."

I have not eaten an egg in maybe 40 years but that slogan absolutely caresses the ear.


And R.E., most of the slogans on that list aren't from American corporations but from those which are distinctly multi-national. True, the advertizing companies responsible for the ads are American but the U.S. dominates this field in the same way that English, as a language, runs roughshod over most of the rest of the world's tongues.

I've always thought of a motto as something more individual, as expressing a personal belief - for example
"My motto is 'Go with the flow'"
whereas I've considered slogans to be more related to groups whether it's corporate (Just do it !), Governmental ("Labour Isn't Working!), religious (Jesus Saves !) or whatever.

Now I think about it though schools have a school motto not a school slogan. I suspect that the real difference is that a slogan always carries an implication of advertising or promotion of some sort or another whereas a motto doesn't have to.

Glaubt es mir - das Geheimnis, um die größte Fruchtbarkeit und den größten Genuß vom Dasein einzuernten, heisst: gefährlich leben.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

I'm wondering if part of the difference can be the connotation? Slogan is a bit negative (though that may just be the sound of the word)--and motto, to me, has a more positive connotation. But again, that could be the sound of the word.

quote:

---

Originally posted by BobHale:
Glaubt es mir - das Geheimnis, um die größte Fruchtbarkeit und den größten Genuß vom Dasein einzuernten, heisst: gefährlich leben.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

---

Which according to google's translator program means, "If it believes me - the secret, in order to in-harvest the largest fertility and the largest benefit of the existence, is called: dangerously live."

Pellucid it's not. Bob, help!

We try harder.
---------------------------
Is this a Viagra ad slogan?

"My motto is go with the flow."
-----------------------------------
Nice motto - if you're a sewer worker.

quote:

---

I'm wondering if part of the difference can be the connotation?

---

First, welcome, welcome, welcome, WinterBranch!
I think you are right. I definitely think of motto as positive and empowering. A slogan could be well-known, but not all that positive. Yet, that just may be my interpretation. The dictionaries don't do a good job of differentiating the words.

quote:

---

Originally posted by shufitz:

quote:

---

Originally posted by BobHale:
Glaubt es mir - das Geheimnis, um die größte Fruchtbarkeit und den größten Genuß vom Dasein einzuernten, heisst: gefährlich leben.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

---

Which according to google's translator program means, _"If it believes me - the secret, in order to in-harvest the largest fertility and the largest benefit of the existence, is called: dangerously live."_

Pellucid it's not. Bob, help!

---

Jerry did the same thing, got the same result and asked the same question.
It's the translator having trouble with Nietzsche's flowery 19th century German.

"Glaubt es mir" can indeed be translated as "Does it believe me?" or "If it it believes me" but here it is an imperative and means "Believe it of me" or just "Believe me", "einernten" (here given as "einzuernten" because not only does German sometimes split infinitives, it puts them back together with "to" inserted in the middle !) is possibly a bit old fashioned and means "gather in" but is here better translated as "reap". "Fruchtbarkeit" rather more literally than "fertility" means "fruitfulness", "Genuss" is better translated figuratively as "pleasure", "Dasein" as "being" or "life" rather than the technically correct "existence", and the word order needs to be put right (which the translator should have done anyway), Then we get

Believe me, the secret to reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the most pleasurefrom life is this - live dangerously.

Better ?

Glaubt es mir - das Geheimnis, um die größte Fruchtbarkeit und den größten Genuß vom Dasein einzuernten, heisst: gefährlich leben.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

[This message was edited by BobHale on Sat Aug 23rd, 2003 at 3:00.]

[This message was edited by BobHale on Sat Aug 23rd, 2003 at 3:01.]

Welcome to our humble abode, WinterBranch.

I'd agree with you and Kalleh that "slogan" has a cheaper connotation than "motto". For example, "motto" appears in the rarely-sung last verse to our national anthem, and "slogan" would sound entirely out of place.

quote:

---

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land,
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just.
And this be our motto—"In God is our trust;"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

---

(P.S. Pretty poor lyrics, if you ask me.)

Now, you are good! I had never heard that verse before. I think you'd better hightail it over to Link the Lyrics.

Apart from DeBeers (which I think is South African) which of the companies in that list is not American?

That they may now be multi-national does not alter their origins.

Richard English

It could well be argued that a map of the world with England the pink and Germany the blue and France the green etc and with each separated by a black line is an outmoded thing. The difference between the country of the United States and the kingdom of Coca-Cola can be blurry at best.

I'm not saying I am totally in agreement but, in speaking of origins, I don't think that one's history necessarily dictates one's present. While it's hard for me to picture you, R.E., as anything else but a charicature of an older Englishman sitting comfortably in a smoke-filled sitting room sipping a British lager, I must assume that you, somewhere along the line, were an infant. That was your origin. Yet, if I were to invade that sitting room of yours and boisterously slap you on the back shouting "You've come a long way, Baby!" I doubt you would readily embrace that reference to your origin as being a fair assessment to your present-day self.


Please note, all, what a good boy (my origin, if not my present condition) I've been by not baiting our esteemed colleague in this thread with any reference to Budweiser. Suffice to say that if any of the many admitedly superior British beers had been blessed with Budweiser's advertizing skills, they might today be known as "The King of Beers."

Well, CJ, I am from the U.S., know about as much as navel lint does about beer, and have tried very few beers, relatively speaking. Yet, surely I, and many, many of my compatriots here in the states, agree that Budweiser is surely not the King of Beers. Sure, an advertisement campaign can call it that, but we all know it's not true. Yes, people drink it, but I still maintain that they do so because it cheap.

As for being so sweet as to not bait Richard, I can only think of the comment in My Cousin Vinny: "Oh yeah, you blend!"

So, if you are implying that Coca Cola is not a US corporation - then what do you suggest it be called?

The Kingdom of "Multi-National" is very hard to find on the map.

Richard English

From reading SF, which now often posits a future without what we consider national boundaries, but countries 'bounded' by the company(-ies) that control them, I've learned the word: metanational.

A google search took me here, where I found

"A team of researchers of INSEAD based on a study for Nokia in the 90's «discovered» a new kind of multinationals that they named «metanationals»."

There was also this,but I couldn't find a good solid definition of a metanational.

For an SF presentation of Metanationality (among other things) taken to its logical absurdity [I hope] read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson...

Thanks haberdasher, I'll look for it!

I think I came across the term in Robinson's Mars Trilogy first. (And you haven't read them, you should!)