Unit 62
I find the author introduces six categories of claims from paragraph 9 to paragraph 15. They are the weasel claim, the “water is wet” claim, the “so what” claim, the scientific or statistical claim, the “compliment the consumer” claim and the rhetorical. Every kind of claim is interesting. The author applies to specific words to conclude their characteristics, and then sets one or two examples for readers to be likely to distinguish them.
To my surprise, weasel word is named after the egg-eating habits of weasels. In other words, this kind of claim appears meaningful in the first time, and then it becomes meaningless after careful observing. We can analyse these two examples of claims. One uses “fights” instead of “stops”; the other quotes “many”. “Fights” and “many” are both obscure. They can not express the real effects or advantages of products. “Fights” just means that Listerine will help users to resist the influence of bad breath. The claim does not say users will not suffer from breath problems any more. As to the word of “many”, we do not know it refers to Hundreds or thousands. The number of brands of television set is not familiar to us as well. Therefore, the price advantage announcement is not truly affirmed.
In paragraph 11, the word “presence” is attractive to me. In my view, “presence” here means “appearance”. If it is deleted, it is also a complete sentence. What is the purpose of the author putting (put)it here? Maybe he would like to emphasize the “two stocks”. Do two stocks improve the taste? Of course not. If pieces of chicken are so few that purchasers will leave lots of stocks after they finish (finished)chicken. Two stocks are useless to them.
In paragraph 12, the word “ways” puzzles me. Does it refer to “methods”? I do not think so. Is it genuine that a bad of bread helps build strong body in twelve different ways? Can the bread make such effect? It is impossible. It occurs to me that these bread consist of twelve different main ingredients that do sorts of benefits for people. Each nutrition ingredients of these twelve plays a role of keeping people’s health separately. As a result, they improve people’s quality and are beneficial to lead bodies to strong.
In paragraph 13, the sentence “the lady has taste” confuses me a lot. I think for a long time. When I find it is included the compliment the customer claim, I get some hints. In my opinion, this claim is complimenting the lady’s taste. However, what is the taste? I know the most universal meaning of “taste” is a feeling produced by a substance. The claims are complimenting the lady smells good and are attractive to persons? I think the lady is not a brand, so complimenting her is hollow. What is more, this paragraph complimenting the consumer claims. So I discover taste here should refer to person’s ability to judge and appreciate hat is good and suitable. The claims have the hints that the lady has taste thanks to her choosing their brand.
In paragraph 15, the writer makes a conclusion that consumers can not protect from being persuading by advertisers. I discover that the word “peer into” could better identify it. “Peer” means to look at. “Peer into the refrigerator” indicates that audience are opening the refrigerator and searching for some snack or drink for a rest. Their attention transfers from TV programs are not disposed to avoid meeting the ads. It may be conscious that closing eyes while passing billboards during driving. Maybe the description of author’s is exaggerated to some degree. It just says that the affect of ads claims are huge even though you do not pay attention to them.
