Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Frank Luntz is one of the most respected communication professionals in America today. He has written, supervised, and conducted more than a thousand surveys and focus groups for corporate and public affairs clients here and abroad. He has developed campaigns for Merrill Lynch, Federal Express, AT& T, Pfizer, and McDonald's. Dr. Luntz is the first resource media outlets turn to when they want to understand American voters. His recurring segments on MSNBC/ CNBC during the 2002 election cycle won an Emmy. He is a regular on Fox where he can be seen 1-3 times per week. Dr. Luntz lives in Alexandria, VA.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

WORDS THAT WORK

HYPERION

Contents

Acknowledgments.......................................................................................viiIntroduction..........................................................................................ixThe War of the Words..................................................................................xxiiiI. The Ten Rules of Effective Language...............................................................1II. Preventing Message Mistakes......................................................................34III. Old Words, New Meaning..........................................................................49IV. How "Words That Work" Are Created................................................................71V. Be the Message....................................................................................81VI. Words We Remember................................................................................107VII. Corporate Case Studies..........................................................................127VIII. Political Case Studies.........................................................................149IX. Myths and Realities About Language and People....................................................179X. What We REALLY Care About.........................................................................205XI. Personal Language for Personal Scenarios.........................................................229XII. Twenty-one Words and Phrases for the Twenty-first Century.......................................239XIII. Conclusion.....................................................................................265The Memos.............................................................................................269AppendicesThe 2003 California Gubernatorial Recall..............................................................271The 21 Political Words and Phrases You Should Never Say Again ... Plus a Few More.....................279The Clinton Impeachment Language......................................................................289Notes.................................................................................................297Index.................................................................................................303Addendum..............................................................................................315

Chapter One

"Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all." -Winston Churchill "When we disregard the rules altogether we get anarchy or, worse yet, Enron." -political humorist Bill Maher

Rules govern our daily lives. Some of these rules are explicit, imposed by government: "obey the speed limit," "no parking," "April 15 is tax day." But most are informal, often unspoken cultural norms-rules of politeness, rules of conduct in the business world, rules of interaction between people. Most are commonly understood traditions that have built up over time, habits so ordinary that we usually don't even think about them.

Unfortunately, not all such involuntary habits and subconscious conventions are positive or productive. American business and political communication is rife with bad habits and unhelpful tendencies that can do serious damage to the companies and causes they seek to promote. Just as in every other field, there are rules to good, effective communication. They may not be as inflexible and absolute as the rules against speeding or avoiding your taxes, but they're just as important if you wish to arrive safely at your destination with money in your pocket.

The rules of communication are especially important given the sheer amount of communication the average person has to contend with. We step out of our houses each morning into a nonstop sensory assault: advertising and entertainment, song lyrics and commercial jingles, clipped conversations and abbreviated e-mails. A good deal of noise also comes from inside our homes, from our TVs to our sound systems to our computers and now our iPods. How do you make people hear your words amid all this chatter? "Great language has exactly the same properties as great music," says Aaron Sorkin, the brilliant writer/creator of the hit television drama The West Wing. "It has rhythm, it has pitch, it has tone, it has accents." So in a cacophonous world, how do you ensure that your musical note stands out?

This chapter seeks to examine the principles behind good communication and, in the process, to discourage some of the most common bad habits that plague everyone from senators to CEOs. The ten rules I offer, identified through a career devoted to real-world research, are equally valuable in ad agency conference rooms and political war rooms (and, for that matter, in conversations with an angry spouse or an anxious teenage daughter). When applied, they give rise to language with color and texture. Language that gets heads nodding. Words that pop, the kinds of words and phrases you only have to hear once before they burn themselves into your mind and drive you to action. In short, these ten principles give rise to words that work.

First, allow me a few caveats. This chapter and this book are not concerned with words that are beautiful, words that are timeless, or words that are ideal in some abstract, philosophical sense. Rather, it is concerned, again, with words that work-language of everyday utility, language that generates practical results. My concern is with the unadorned, commonsense language of small town, middle America, not the intellectual gamesmanship of the ivory tower. It's with language that has bubbled up from the American people themselves.

There is certainly a time and a place for high-flown, literary language. But to capture a listener's attention the language doesn't need to be urbane or erudite-or use words like, well ... urbane or erudite. It does not necessarily need the uplifting, ennobling tone of Ted Sorenson (John F. Kennedy's friend and speechwriter) and Peggy Noonan (gifted scribe for Ronald Reagan), the two great speechwriters of our time. The lofty language of Sorensen and Noonan transcends ideologies and generations, moving listeners just as much today as when their words were first spoken by others decades ago. Noonan was once asked to reflect on the craft of wordsmithing and speechwriting, and I think she had it right:

Most of us are not great leaders speaking at great moments. Most of us are businessmen rolling out our next year's financial goals, or teachers at a state convention making the case for a new curriculum, or nurses at a union meeting explaining the impact of managed care on the hospitals in which we work. And we must have the sound appropriate to us.... Your style should never be taller than you are."

In an ideal world, everyone would have all the knowledge they need, a home library, and our political discourse might take place on the elevated level of a Lincoln-Douglas debate or at least The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. People would not speak simply, in concise sentences, but obtusely, in dense paragraphs full of tremendous detail, classical allusions, and subtle theoretical insights-more like Bill Buckley than Bill O'Reilly.

That...