Are Halloween cliches driving YOU batty?
Today's word rant of the day naturally applies to Halloween.
Less obviously, it applies to marketing materials and mass-market publications. (Sorry about all that alliteration; at least I avoided using "magazine.")
As you all know, I ADORE Halloween, in all its kitschy wonder. I adore the spooky stuff, the mid-century graphic stuff, the costumes, the scary stories, the Knott's Berry Farm Halloween Haunt, the colors--all of it. (Okay, I could live with less lime green and purple, and I favor a renewed emphasis on the traditional black and orange with SMALL green and purple accents.) But in general, I think Halloween is the perfect holiday, and I prepare for its celebration all year.
I also read LOTS, maybe even most, of the articles published in the waiting-at-the-hair-salon magazines about it, searching for recipes, decorating ideas, new ways to haunt my house/yard, the best method for making front-yard graves, the newest innovations in cheesecloth ghosts, how to keep the !@#&*()&*)(!ed lights from tangling, and all the rest of it.
That said, if I see the words "spooktacular" or "boo-tiful" ONE MORE TIME, I'm going to get all stabby.
Seriously, can they just not help themselves? Or is it too easy for today's "journalists" (I use the term with great skepticism) to fall into facile cliches, never daring to say "We hope you'll like the way we've decorated this orange-and-black cake. We think the pumpkin designs are charming, and the bats flying over the moon give it an air of eerieness that's fun and appropriate for the holiday"? Can they just not do that? Are they SO STUPID and SO enmeshed in the manufactured non-words that they really have to fall back, year after year, on the sickening, ever-too-cutesy "spooktacular" and "bootiful" AGAIN?!?!?!
Okay, I've talked myself into it. I'm going to get all stabby. (Thanks, Tracy, for coining that word. I DID tell you I was stealing it, didn't I?)
PS: I'll be back to rant next month about "all the trimmings" and to decry the use of the turkey as a decorative object for Thanksgiving dinner.
Less obviously, it applies to marketing materials and mass-market publications. (Sorry about all that alliteration; at least I avoided using "magazine.")
As you all know, I ADORE Halloween, in all its kitschy wonder. I adore the spooky stuff, the mid-century graphic stuff, the costumes, the scary stories, the Knott's Berry Farm Halloween Haunt, the colors--all of it. (Okay, I could live with less lime green and purple, and I favor a renewed emphasis on the traditional black and orange with SMALL green and purple accents.) But in general, I think Halloween is the perfect holiday, and I prepare for its celebration all year.
I also read LOTS, maybe even most, of the articles published in the waiting-at-the-hair-salon magazines about it, searching for recipes, decorating ideas, new ways to haunt my house/yard, the best method for making front-yard graves, the newest innovations in cheesecloth ghosts, how to keep the !@#&*()&*)(!ed lights from tangling, and all the rest of it.
That said, if I see the words "spooktacular" or "boo-tiful" ONE MORE TIME, I'm going to get all stabby.
Seriously, can they just not help themselves? Or is it too easy for today's "journalists" (I use the term with great skepticism) to fall into facile cliches, never daring to say "We hope you'll like the way we've decorated this orange-and-black cake. We think the pumpkin designs are charming, and the bats flying over the moon give it an air of eerieness that's fun and appropriate for the holiday"? Can they just not do that? Are they SO STUPID and SO enmeshed in the manufactured non-words that they really have to fall back, year after year, on the sickening, ever-too-cutesy "spooktacular" and "bootiful" AGAIN?!?!?!
Okay, I've talked myself into it. I'm going to get all stabby. (Thanks, Tracy, for coining that word. I DID tell you I was stealing it, didn't I?)
PS: I'll be back to rant next month about "all the trimmings" and to decry the use of the turkey as a decorative object for Thanksgiving dinner.
posted by jillsifer | September 19, 2009
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