WATCH YOUR WORDS!
Growing up, we had a rather childish saying about
slander: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me!” Life would be wonderful indeed if that saying
was the whole truth. In fact, our words
are extremely powerful. Thus, they can
cause unnecessary and incessant pain when deployed in a cavalier, unthinking, or uncompassionate manner.
I read a fascinating article from the February 1992 issue
of “American Demographics,” that highlighted the potential impact of words on
various audiences. While humorous, it
reveals serious lessons on this human issue of communication:
Communicating with a target market means more than
tossing out catchy slogans. A few
companies learned this the hard way when they tried to translate their catchy
English slogans directly into Spanish. Braniff beckoned its passengers to “Fly in
Leather,” and Eastern Airlines proclaimed that “We Earn Our Wings Daily.” Both of these now-defunct airlines were
terribly mistaken. A Spanish speaker
would think Braniff was asking its riders to “Fly Naked,” and a Spanish
translation of the Eastern slogan evoked a final destination in heaven,
following death. A few additional classic
marketing blunders: General Motors discovered too late that “Nova” sounds like “Doesn't
go” in Spanish. Coors encouraged its
English-speaking customers to “Turn It Loose,” but the phrase in Spanish meant “Suffer
from Diarrhea.” Budweiser’s “King of
Beers” becomes “Queen of Beers” in Spanish because the Spanish word for beer, “cerveza,”
has a feminine ending. And when Frank
Perdue said, “It Takes a Tough Man to Make a Tender Chicken,” Spanish speakers
heard “It Takes a Sexually Stimulated Man to Make a Chicken Affectionate.”
Wow! In the words of Arsenio Hall: “Things
that make you say, hmmm!”
Lesson learned.
We must be keenly aware of the impact of whatever we intend to say.
Sisters and brothers, be continually blessed, and
please (above all else) MAKE SURE YOU ARE READY TO MEET OUR SOON COMING KING.
Maranatha!
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