Thursday, August 28, 2008

Terms of Art

I was at the dermatologist (I had two moles removed, nosey) earlier this week and I saw a little card pushing some kind of skin treatment for people with red spots on their face. There were the obligatory two photos, one of a woman's cheek with lots of blemishes, the second one 90% cleared up. It said the drug treated "aesthetic suffering." I love that term. It could also apply to ugly people.

"I feel so sorry for him. He's got that aesthetic suffering."

The term reminded me of one I heard on an infomercial for Lasting Kiss lipstick a number of years ago. MASH star and foie gras objector Loretta Switt and Tracey Bregman Recht (who?) hosted it. The whole infomercial was shot with a soft filter on the lens. Anyhoo, this "Lasting Kiss" business was a two step process. First you put on the lipstick, and then you applied a "sealer." There was lots of drinking from white coffee mugs ("See, no smudges!") and talk of their significant others ("My husband kisses me every morning before he goes to work!"). The "expert" character on the infomercial said that the lipstick and the sealer were "cosmetically dependent," and that this dependence is what made Lasting Kiss so terrific.

Cosmetically dependent! Sounds like the spouse of a woman addicted to mascara. I guess that would be a cosmetic co-dependent.

Copywriters are so shameless in the creation of new terms to make the product they're shilling sound more scientific. I should know. I am a copywriter on occasion.

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