Attention all marketers, copywriters, and advertising folk:
Please, from this day forward, stop using the following phrase, because you obviously lack the logical skills required to infer the implication:
Second to None
I heard this phrase on the radio again today, and its earnest presenter assured me that a local grocery store’s pharmacy offered customer service that is second to none.
Oh, really, I thought; so the customer service presented by the cut-rate employees of the discount chain are actually not as good as when the store offers no customer service at all? I mean, that’s what none is; it’s the lack of the very thing offered, and when you say you’re second to none, that doesn’t mean that you’re first; it means that you’re lower than nothing at all.
Oh, I know, you’re going to try to convince me otherwise because you see the inherent logic in the clichés and catchphrases that you parrot in the pursuit of creativity, but really. Trust me, I have a degree in philosophy. You’re just wrong, and you can just as easily parrot some cliché or catchphrase that annoys me slightly less.
Thank you, that is all.
I would also like to add the phrase, “I could care less.” Because, of course we could all care less. Shouldn’t we say that we could care more?
The flip side of this, often heard in drug ads, is “No medicine is more powerful.”
Make mine placebo. Preferably in time-released form.