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Ford's New Ad Slogan: Go Further


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http://popvssoda.com/images/bigdrawn.gif

 

Curious. You must pick your spots carefully, as this map suggests it goes straight to 'pop' for most people, with a smattering of soda-ites up to KC.

Interesting map. Around central OK, it's usually "Coke" and sometimes "pop," but some of the old-timers, particularly in the rural areas, will say "soda pop." If someone says "soda," they're usually Not From Around Here.

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http://popvssoda.com/images/bigdrawn.gif

 

Curious. You must pick your spots carefully, as this map suggests it goes straight to 'pop' for most people, with a smattering of soda-ites up to KC.

 

I love this. I always thought the Midwest was known for saying "pop", but when I think about it, all the people in my family and around my area tend to say "soda". The map bears that out--eastern 1/3 of Wisconsin leans "soda", but most/all of Minnesota, Michigan and Iowa lean "pop".

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Get me away from things that involve Latin, though, and I begin to look really amateurish.

I did a senior research paper on Heidegger's Being and Time. The English translation quotes the German liberally in the footnotes and I found German to be hopelessly opaque. Not so French, which I've generally been able to sort of fumble my way through, based on the little French I know and the extensive Latin borrowings in English.

 

Anyway, I told my very German professor, "It sure seems like French is an easier language to learn than German," to which he replied, "A German would say that it is easy to learn or no Frenchman could learn it."

 

(and, you know what a Swede is, right? A German in human form).

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I did a senior research paper on Heidegger's Being and Time. The English translation quotes the German liberally in the footnotes and I found German to be hopelessly opaque. Not so French, which I've generally been able to sort of fumble my way through, based on the little French I know and the extensive Latin borrowings in English.

 

Anyway, I told my very German professor, "It sure seems like French is an easier language to learn than German," to which he replied, "A German would say that it is easy to learn or no Frenchman could learn it."

 

(and, you know what a Swede is, right? A German in human form).

Had Modern English remained closer to Old English, it probably would have made German much clearer to you.

 

Also, it's funny you mention French... two of my classmates made a presentation today about how extensive borrowing was from Frankish (Germanic) to Western Romance. One of the points they made was that lending and borrowing occurred pretty freely centuries ago. (Side note: I can muddle through written French as well, but ask me to listen to something and I'm completely lost.)

 

To the point about your professor, though, it's REALLY crazy how defensive (or persnickety... whichever) native Europeans can get about their respective languages.

 

Steering back on topic: Geh weiter. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

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Had Modern English remained closer to Old English, it probably would have made German much clearer to you.

That's why I'm such a fan of the Middle English as Old English/Old Norse creole theory. It explains how, in a matter of what? a couple centuries? English went from being heavily inflected with great flexibility in subject, verb and object ordering to a lightly inflected and rigid SVO framework into which you can insert just about any word, and the sentence structure provides the word with its role.

 

Change a noun to a verb? Nothing could possibly be easier:

 

"...ever since her being turned into a Churchill she has out-Churchill'd them all in high and mighty claims"

 

(and even if not true, I do like this aspect of English)

 

Steering back on topic: Geh weiter. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

Isn't this kind of an odd slogan to translate into the Romance languages?

Edited by RichardJensen
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Steering back on topic: Geh weiter. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

 

Based off a couple hours spent reading the pronunciation section of a German book ten years ago (and no other german study), I'd say it rather does.

 

But then, not knowing how it should actually be pronounced gives me great leeway to pronounce it as I would like it to sound

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No more lame than "Moving Forward". :poke:

 

Moving Forward is equally as lame in my opinion, possibly even more generic. Personally I find slogans in general to be a pretty stupid method of product endorsement but given the overall lack of any real intelligence in most of our population and their propensity to think in buzz clips I suppose it makes perfect sense. At any rate, I didn't buy a Toyota because of their slogan. I bought it because it was far better than the substandard Ford product that I was driving previously. Now that's a good slogan. lol

Edited by BlackHorse
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Isn't this kind of an odd slogan to translate into the Romance languages?

 

Based off a couple hours spent reading the pronunciation section of a German book ten years ago (and no other german study), I'd say it rather does.

 

But then, not knowing how it should actually be pronounced gives me great leeway to pronounce it as I would like it to sound

Both of you make valid points.

 

To me it actually sounds better in German because that language actually has synthetic comparatives, just as English does. Romance dropped that construction (it existed in Latin), preferring to use a periphrasis of "more + <adjective>."

 

Since Ford is worldwide, I'd be interested to see how they express it in each country's native language (and variant, for that matter). I remember when McDonald's was translating "I'm lovin' it" to other languages, there was no easy way since that's a colloquial English saying, so they did the best they could.

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Based off a couple hours spent reading the pronunciation section of a German book ten years ago (and no other german study), I'd say it rather does.

 

But then, not knowing how it should actually be pronounced gives me great leeway to pronounce it as I would like it to sound

 

 

its pronounced gay viter . long I like in Budweiser.

Edited by Gnostic
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Moving Forward is equally as lame in my opinion, possibly even more generic. Personally I find slogans in general to be a pretty stupid method of product endorsement but given the overall lack of any real intelligence in most of our population and their propensity to think in buzz clips I suppose it makes perfect sense. At any rate, I didn't buy a Toyota because of their slogan. I bought it because it was far better than the substandard Ford product that I was driving previously. Now that's a good slogan. lol

 

Slogans exist because they work.

 

What's the first thing you think of when you hear "Just do it"? How about something as simple as "Enjoy"? Easily recognizable slogans keep brands in the forefront of consumers' minds.

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Moving Forward is equally as lame in my opinion, possibly even more generic. Personally I find slogans in general to be a pretty stupid method of product endorsement but given the overall lack of any real intelligence in most of our population and their propensity to think in buzz clips I suppose it makes perfect sense. At any rate, I didn't buy a Toyota because of their slogan. I bought it because it was far better than the substandard Ford product that I was driving previously. Now that's a good slogan. lol

 

I wonder if Isuzu used "Moving Forward" as their slogan at some point?

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