John Malmo

When did we let the media hijack our language?

It must have been television newscasters - second only to sports radio in mangling the language - that one day decided that people no longer disappear.  They “go missing.”  Go missing?  How can that be?  To disappear is to cease to appear.  To vanish.  Isn’t that the case when somebody, uh . . . disappears?

Missing does indeed, mean absent, lost, not present.  So, to say that Charlie is missing is fine.  But to say Charlie has GONE missing or went missing?  How does that make sense?  

Most American school kids can read, at least to some degree.  But they’re lousy at math.

That’s no puzzle.  Math is a lot harder.  There’s no “about” or “roughly” in math.  There’s only one answer to every problem.

The world has been celebrating the life of Steve Jobs.  At the same time, a story popped up in Harvard Business Review that’s worth thinking about in the context of Mr. Jobs.  It’s about the myth of innovation.  

The point of the article is that we celebrate great innovators such as Jobs and Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton; all great discoverers, inventors and innovators.  And, generally, we believe in that ah-hah moment of the innovator.  

If you Google duct tape, you’ll discover that there are eleven million, seven-hundred-thousand results.  For duct tape.  An industrial product.

Duct Tape was made first by Johnson and Johnson in nineteen-forty-two.  First use was to tape ammunition boxes during World War II because it was moisture-proof.   GIs also used it to repair guns, Jeeps, airplanes, almost everything.

Rolls-Royce has hired its first advertising agency in America.  The task for the agency is to create a new, younger image for the car that is a cliché for wealthy, old men with chauffeurs.  

The company believes its appeal to well-heeled, older buyers remains strong, but Rolls-Royce wants to capture younger, affluent drivers as well.  Word is that the agency is likely to utilize a lot of live, promotional events, as opposed to traditional media advertising.