Conventional wisdom suggests that I probably should have
flipped them, writing today’s post yesterday, and yesterday’s post today. But I didn’t feel like it, so I didn’t. That’s the kind of power you have when you
answer to nobody.
In contrast to yesterday’s post, which I have never read
anywhere else, today’s post is more traditional in nature, relegating today’s post to a somewhat of an
anti-climactic position.
Are you trying to drive us away?
I am simply being truthful, in the hopes that your respect
for my honesty will outweigh your disappointment at my strategic faux pas.
Fine.
I appreciate your support.
Now…
Specificity: The Short Version
“I dropped a heavy object on my foot.”
“I dropped an anvil on my pinkie.”
From the “specificity” standpoint, the second example is
superior. Also – hearkening back to
yesterday’s post – from a “mellifluity ” standpoint, the second example also
“flows” better. (I was hoping that,
maybe if I “called back” yesterday’s post, recalling how sparklingly
illuminating it was, you might cut this
one a little qualitative slack.)
As a rule, “specificity” makes jokes funnier. But there are limits. Sometimes, for example…wait. I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll come back to that later. Just remind me, or I’ll forget.
How are we supposed to do that?
Retroactive telepathy.
Never mind. I’ll remind myself.
Oh, man! We are never hearing that example.
Okay… two things brought the “specificity” issue to
mind. One was my mentioning that, during
my rewriting process, I look to infuse my earlier drafts with more evocative
descriptives, a significant element of that process involving replacing the
“general” with….everybody?
(THE BORED STUDENT, SECRETLY TEXTING DURING CLASS) The “specific.”
Thank you. Which
brings me back to my example. No, sorry. It’s still too soon. But at least I remembered.
Now, the second thing that brought “specificity” to mind was
this commercial I saw recently. I cannot
quote it verbatim, since it is not yet on YouTube
and, because I’ve been desperately looking for it – of course – I can no longer
find it on TV.
It is utterly ridiculous.
Here’s a guy who tries his best to avoid
commercials, and all I’ve been doing the past two days is jump from channel to
channel, trying to track down this suddenly unavailable commercial.
They used the run the thing a couple of times an hour! Sometimes, twice in the same commercial
block! Now – because I want to – I cannot
find it anywhere!
The ends a man goes to in the service his readership.
Anyway, it’s one of those series of commercials promoting DirecTV, all of which hew to the same
structural template:
Something leads to something, which leads to something,
which leads to something, which leads to something, which leads to something, which
finally leads to something unfortunate that you don’t want to happen; so, if
you don’t want that unfortunate thing to happen, you should switch to DirecTV.
That’s what they’re offering, on the premise that a humorous
commercial will impel me to alter my television-viewing delivery system.
The commercial in question goes something like this:
When you look at your
cable bill, you feel down.
And when you feel
down, you stay in bed.
And when you stay in
bed, they give your job to somebody new.
And when they give
your job to somebody new, he has a lot to learn.
And when he has a lot
to learn, mistakes are made.
And when mistakes are
made {since the guy’s a zoo employee and the “New Guy” allows him to escape}
You get body-slammed
by a lowland gorilla.
The message: If you
don’t want to get body-slammed by a lowland gorilla, abandon your cable system and
switch to DirecTV. As if a stunt man in a gorilla suit is going
to influence my decision-making. (Note: In my
day, the commercials used to explain why their product was better. They were lying, but at least they made the
effort.)
What struck me most strongly about the DirceTV commercial was the descriptive “lowland” preceding the word
“gorilla.”
That, my friends, is “specificity.” It’s not
any gorilla.
You get body-slammed by a lowland gorilla.
(By the way, another example of “specificity” is “body-slammed.” You will not get “knocked down by a lowland gorilla.” Nor will you get – a marginal improvement –
“bowled over by a lowland
gorilla.” Nor will you – which is almost
as good – get “blind-sided by a
lowland gorilla.” You will, most
specifically, get body-slammed by a
lowland gorilla.”
On the “Specificity Grid”, “body-slammed” is a virtual “Ten.” It is, by the way, also the “musical” optimal
choice as well. That’s hitting the
“appropriate word selection” jackpot. As
a writer, you combine “specificity” with
“musicality”, and it’s “Tip your hat, and give him a candy!”
Are we almost done?
Yes, except my qualifying example. Although, as a rule, “specific” is funnier,
it is possible to be too specific. For example, had the commercial writers gone
all “genus and species” on us and said, “You get blind-sided by a gorilla beringei”, the response, rather
than “Ha-ha”, would instead have been “What?”
“Lowland” was specific, without deteriorating into
“What?” Meaning that, though “specificity”
is your primary “Rule of Thumb”, you have to careful not to lose your audience
by being “too smart for the room.”
What about The Big
Bang Theory? The characters in that show are arcanely specific about
their physics jargon and no one has a clue what they’re talking about. And yet, the show is extremely funny and
monumentally successful.
----------------------------- (denoting “No answer.”)
Also, when in the Two
Thousand Year-Old Man routine, Carl Reiner asks Mel Brooks, concerning the
greatest inventions of all time, “What about the wheel?”, and Brooks replies, “That was good.” – “good” is funny,
because it is the opposite of specific.
----------------------------- (denoting “You got me again.”)
Okay, I am officially declaring today’s post an unmitigated
disaster. It happens. I am not a machine. Just know that I meant well, and I tried my
best.
2 comments:
I thought this was a TERRIFIC post. Very insightful, plus the advantage of watching you think through it. Always neat!
Several years ago I was at an event that was also attended by a large gentleman in a garish wrinkled rust-colored silk suit. I said, "He looks like a Cambodian pimp" to great humorous effect. People still remember that joke today. They all think it was funny because of the "pimp" part, but I know it was "Cambodian" that made it work. Specificity.
I also loved this post. I have a similar thing to Brian's - a particular technology evangelist who I said looked like a "used Jaguar salesman".
wg
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