Image credit: Christina Snyder.

I think it’s the sloganeers that win most of my respect and admiration. In the advertising world, that is. Perhaps it’s the act of writing sales or ad copy that can really show what you’re made of. Finding that magic blend of brevity, wit, and power is yet another of those tempting grapes that I keep leaping for, yet it seems to keep eluding me.

Every now and then I see something and a little phrase pops to mind. Normally it’s a pun or wordplay that lands softly on my tongue and leaps out at the first opportunity. I want to be first to introduce the latest and greatest neologism to grace the minds and hearts of my peers and neighbors in social media. (I’m incredibly jealous of James Chartrand for inventing “niebu”. Well, he didn’t really invent it; his fat fingers did. But I digress as the envy express loads up for the next ride.) Or anywhere, really. As long as it’s clever and (here it comes) I get some credit for originating the pithy phrase, I’ll take what I can get.

This is turning into a more serious condition for me, though. I think I have coinage envy (see, I can’t stop trying!) Or punitus. Here are some (overlooked) examples of mine that I saved in Twitter:

  • Q: What song do pirates sing when they’re outnumbered/outgunned by other pirates? A: “You’ve got to fight, for your right, to parlay!”
  • If Saturday night’s all right for fighting, is Monday morning all right for moaning?
  • There is only one thing worse than not being talked about and that is not being Twittered about – apologies to O. Wilde
  • I saw the phrase “shrinkage enhancement” in a doc. at work today and thought, hm… oxymoron?
  • Air conditioning – the miracle that ultimately made Web 2.0 possible. :)

And then there’s the attempts at pseudo-technical terminology!

  • Idea injection method
  • Rookiememe
  • Chattercrack
  • Humpday Linkage (an actual weblog that I used to post on Wednesdays)

But of course, other smart minds are out there grabbing the terms like “Twebinar”, “Plurkcast”, “Plurker”, “Clowd”, and Facebook and Twitter and… Google… and…

[deep breath]

OK, what to do? Should I abandon this pointless quest for sentence success? Or should I keep trying for something shining that “sticks”? (more on this later)

EDIT:  and, most importantly, should I get a life?   ;-)
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