# Hey, ad people-- words mean things!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 23, 2008, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225 "2008-10-23T16:55:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/41 "2008-10-23T22:48:28Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#): > > I’d look it up to prove you wrong, but then you’d just look up the one I used with all the X’s and Z’s. You mean zyzzyva? Go ahead. (I realize there are no Xs in that word. It just tickles me that it’s actually a word.) ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/42 "2008-10-23T22:50:04Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I think this rant needs to be %10 more rasta. Okay - say it to yourself while holding your breath and squinting one eye. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/43 "2008-10-23T22:56:56Z")
Next time you’re at a restaurant that advertises “home-made pie” ask whose home it was made in. > [@pedescribe](#): > > “Nefcu?” > > “It’s a worm in New Guniea. Everyone knows that.” I’d have sworn it was an Abyssinian nose flute. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/44 "2008-10-23T23:10:53Z")
**Biggirl** , Orson Welles would like you to join his [club](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V14PfDDwxlE).\* \*Link goes directly to video with sound. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/45 "2008-10-23T23:18:32Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Out here in CA, when you see " New _Homes_ for sale" they always mean condos. Why not say _condo_? See, here, you’re the one who’s mistaken, I believe. You’re conflating the word “home” with the word “house,” which is just what advertiser have been trying to get you to do for years. A condo is just as much as home as a house. What bugs me is that, as far as the real estate industry is concerned, there’s no such thing as a house anymore, only “homes.” Yuk. Frankly, calling a condo a home bugs me a little bit less than calling a house a home, in adspeak at any rate. One of my peeves is that there’s no such thing as a garage sale anymore; people only have estate sales. I want to go up to them and say, “I’m so sorry for your loss? Who died?” ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/46 "2008-10-23T23:57:34Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Next time you’re at a restaurant that advertises “home-made pie” ask whose home it was made in. Have you seen the restaurants that advertise this or that dish as “house-made”. 😕 Because, hell, there’s always a chance that someone (or something) might live in the restaurants, thus making it a home, right? But it’s not a house! And even if it were, no one says “house-made”. It sounds you might be claiming it was made _by_ a house. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/47 "2008-10-24T00:04:16Z")
> [@Telperien](#): > > This bloated feeling, I guess, as opposed to those other bloated feelings. \ I’ve lost that bloated feeling… I’ve lost that bloated feeling… Now it’s gone, gone, gone… ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/48 "2008-10-24T00:04:54Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Next time you’re at a restaurant that advertises “home-made pie” ask whose home it was made in. Again, “home” and “house” are not interchangeable synonyms. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/49 "2008-10-24T00:39:58Z")
_Enters batshit insane mode…_ I defy you to prove to me that words have any meaning beyond what we want to give them at any moment in time. And since they don’t have any fixed meaning, this means that you can’t use words to prove your point. Go ahead, just try it! Prove that words have specific meanings without using any words. You can’t! Bwahahahaha!!! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/50 "2008-10-24T00:45:31Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. Eventually? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/51 "2008-10-24T00:47:32Z")
I have to say, I have taken a completely natural, organic enjoyment in visually looking at this thread. It embiggens us all, as we might have expected from the cromulence of the OP’s name. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/52 "2008-10-24T00:51:21Z")
Verbing weirds language. ---
**Author:** ![Incensed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Incensed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incensed)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/53 "2008-10-24T00:55:37Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. _-See Joyce, James._ My favorite examples of language perversion were the billboards in NC that touted ‘non-invasive’ surgery. Less invasive sure, but surgery is inherently a bit invasive, unless they’ve found a way to remove tumors by reverse osmosis…but that’s not really surgery, now is it? ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/54 "2008-10-24T01:01:28Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > _Enters batshit insane mode…_ > > I defy you to prove to me that words have any meaning beyond what we want to give them at any moment in time. And since they don’t have any fixed meaning, this means that you can’t use words to prove your point. > > Go ahead, just try it! Prove that words have specific meanings without using any words. You can’t! Bwahahahaha!!! > > 😃 Dude. Even if I did such things–even if I just _thought_ about doing such things–I sure as fuck wouldn’t post about it on an internet message board. I mean, that’s just wrong. Sure, we all have our fantasies, things we think about in, you know, “private moments” but–Kittens AND underage children AND _your own mother?!?_ That’s just sick. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/55 "2008-10-24T01:22:49Z")
> [@Incensed](#): > > My favorite examples of language perversion were the billboards in NC that touted ‘non-invasive’ surgery. Less invasive sure, but surgery is inherently a bit invasive, unless they’ve found a way to remove tumors by reverse osmosis…but that’s not really surgery, now is it? I’m not one for language peevology, or even much language smirkology, particularly where jargon is concerned, but I was amused when I discovered that colonoscopy is canonically referred to as a “minimally invasive” medical procedure. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/56 "2008-10-24T02:01:07Z")
> [@bobkitty](#): > > According to their most recent commercial, Barbasol has shaving creams in “seven flavors.” > > I’m not in their target audience, but I have to ask the gentlemen out there: Have you ever been so sleepy in the morning that, while shaving, you have mistaken your shaving cream for something edible? I like my hot sauce in two flavours. Red and Brown. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/57 "2008-10-24T02:19:39Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > I like my hot sauce in two flavours. Red and Brown. Red is my favorite flavor of Kool-aid. Followed closely by purple. This is not a misuse of language, this is a correction of one of the worst word meaning abuses on record. I mean, do you know of any cherries or grapes that taste like that? ---
**Author:** ![Jaglavak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85f322/32.png) [@Jaglavak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaglavak)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/58 "2008-10-24T20:44:00Z")
> [@bobkitty](#): > > …I have to ask the gentlemen out there: Have you ever been so sleepy in the morning that, while shaving, you have mistaken your shaving cream for something edible? Well I’m no gentleman but here goes: never have eaten shaving cream. But one foggy morning I did accidentally put hand lotion on my toothbrush. So I went back to bed. ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/59 "2008-10-24T20:58:22Z")
> [@Lord\_Ashtar](#): > > That is totally lubricated. Well, I’m phasing. > > Marvy. Fab. Far out. > > Someone on this board will get this reference. What is Calvin and Hobbes, Alex? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225/60 "2008-10-24T21:18:32Z")
> [@PoorYorick](#): > > What is Calvin and Hobbes, Alex? :eek: You poor man. ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-ad-people-words-mean-things/469225.md?page=4)