123 meme

The afore-promised… and, as you can see, entirely unoriginal, offering of words. But it seems that that is the name of the game. 🙂

So, the book is by Dr. Frank Luntz¹. To give its fully expounded title: “Words that Work: It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear”.

The point Goldwater thought he was making, a strong unwavering declaration for freedom, was far too rarified for the context of a presidential campaign. By appearing to describe himself as an extremist – actually using that highly charged word – Goldwater’s own language reinforced the image his opponents had created for him as a finger-on-the-nuclear-button extremist.

But the story doesn’t end there.

Hehe, quite an amusing exercise, actually! The only liberty I took was to chose whether or not the first half-sentence ‘counted’. So of course I had to encourage you all to read the book…

¹(Yes, I know, I’ve talked about it before… but it was closest, and it is precisely because it has more than 123 pages that I am *still* not finished reading it.)