The Mumpsimus Blog site: The Mumpsimus Blog site -> World-class or just hyperbole in our advertising?

I despise the hackneyed phrase "world-class." It's a tired cliché supposed to inspire and excite where it only deadens and dulls the senses. In a world where everything is touted as "world-class", nothing is exceptional or intimate. In the era of the 100-mile diet and sustainable economies, the term world-class has been economically and socially discredited along with its cousin, globalization.

I long for something closer to home: small-town-class, or even south-Georgian-Bay-class. Even provincial-class would be more uplifting than the dreariness of "world-class."

After all, what does "world-class" mean today? The word originates from the "use to describe athletes capable of performing at an international level of competition." It once meant "ranking among the foremost in the world; of an international standard of excellence. " Today is has been extended to cover the most banal and insipid items and events, draining its value as a phrase.

A quick search of the Internet brings up tens of thousands of "world-class" offerings: gymnastics, fragrances, hip-hop bands, driving, manufacturing, coaching, arenas, anniversaries, bicycles, horse registry, beverages, lighting, sporting events, awards and promotions, maintenance, paints, CD and DVD reproduction, real estate, limousines, cleaners, giant pumpkins, Christmas displays, ink, poetry, marriage, Web hosting, resumes, deer hunting, thugs, wrestling, wines, boxing, flags, parking, nutrition, beers, ice sculptures, travel, fitness, casinos, medals, vacations, models, customer service, memories, chili, fireworks, burgers, recruiting and pornography.

Is this a club we really want to be a member of? Everything in the world is now "world-class." Shouldn't we at least try to be somewhat different?

World-class ranks up there with "paradigm shift" as an annoying over-used bit of linguistic puffery. Clichés all share the same thing in common: they weaken language. They are used as expedient alternatives to actually thinking out the proper words. Sure, some clichés still have some intrinsic descriptive value, but we're awash in trite phrases like 'world-class' that swamp any value others may hold.

I cringe when I see or hear the term "world-class" applied to my home town. It's like calling our town unique. Sure it's unique if you're contemplating all the towns along southern Georgian Bay named after a Vice Admiral who fought at the Battle of Trafalgar. But otherwise, it isn't. Exceptional, yes; outstanding, okay; different, very much so. But unique? Hardly even close. And world-class? That just means it's like everyone else.

But there, on page 4 of the Georgian Bay See & Do Guide (included in the Spring 2009 copy of Mountain Life), is the ad for the Town of Collingwood*, advertising our "world-class windsurfing."

Hyperbole, perhaps?

By that description, Collingwood has to be on a level with Maui, Australia, Puerto Escondido and southern California - all described as both world-class and year-round destination sites. But surely Collingwood is not among this elite group. One local area** is a good place to windsurf a few months of the year, and even then it's cold water. Yes, it's perhaps the best windsurfing on Georgian Bay and who knows, maybe even in the whole province. But world-class? If it is, why aren't we seeing international competitions hosted here on a regular basis***? Why aren't we a hot destination spot for windsurfers like Maui is?

I checked a few of the seemingly popular windsurfing sites. Collingwood isn't listed on any of them. It's not listed as a windsurfing destination.

Obviously the ad exaggerates a tad. That may be acceptable in private sector advertising (like calling an SUV a "crossover vehicle" to fool the gullible into thinking they're not really buying another environmentally-hostile gas guzzler), but in an advertisement for a municipality, I think we should be truthful and forthright. And calling our windsurfing 'world-class' is not.

That got me reading further into the ad, and what I saw raised my blood pressure a lot more. To wit:

Airport: First, why isn't our airport mentioned? We have an airport with a 5,000-foot runway capable of landing large jets. We have a new terminal building, a popular café, and hangars full of airplane owners and entrepreneurs who cater to that trade. It's operated by a successful joint venture of regional municipal partners: Clearview and Wasaga Beach both have a seat on the board of management. And it's one of the area's best economic success stories.

Yet it's overlooked entirely. You can imagine how well that went over when it was brought up at the airport board this week.

Since the ad was commissioned by our Economic Development Office, Councillor Mike Edwards contacted our Economic Development Officer, Catherine Durrant, about this oversight. In her defence, Catherine said the Airport is listed in the EDO website under Community Profile in Transportation. And so it is - but that's virtually hidden to anyone who doesn't already know where to look. There is no search engine for the site, so browsers have to plough through every page to find the content they want. The design is very poor from a user's perspective - but that's an issue for another post. I digress... back to the points made in the ad.

Fun year-round festivals and events. Can you please tell me what year-round festivals we have here? Year-round means operating continuously throughout the year. I am at am loss to recall a single event we have that runs continuously from January 1 to December 31, unless you're counting council meetings as a 'festival.' Whether they're fun is equally debatable. Surely the proper word is a very different one: annual, which means something that occurs every year.

Hearty food for the hungry. Doesn't this phrase suggest there is also 'hearty food for the sated" offered elsewhere? Or perhaps also 'hearty food for those who just want to nibble on something." Do we offer non-hearty food for the hungry too? Or is non-hearty food only for those already full? Ah, but then we learn that while the hungry only have the choice of hearty food, there is an option for those who aren't hungry:

Fine dining for the connoisseur. Why only for the connoisseur? Can't regular folks enjoy fine dining too? What about 'fine dining for the hungry" - can hungry people enjoy it too or are they relegated to eating only hearty food? Can't connoisseurs slum a bit and have some 'hearty food' now and then? Why do either of these choices need to be qualified? Why not simply write "hearty food and fine dining"?

Friendly pubs and fast food convenience. Does this suggest other communities have unfriendly pubs? And inconvenient slow food? Or that our pubs serve only convenient fast food? What if I want hearty food? Do I have to look outside the friendly pub? Maybe it means friendly pubs serve fast food, while unfriendly pubs serve something else.

Is there inconvenient fast food? Or do our pubs serve inconvenient food, and you have to go to a fast food outlet to find convenient food? What, after all, is convenient food? Convenience means anything that saves or simplifies work, adds to one's ease or comfort, etc., as an appliance, utensil, or the like; is easy to obtain, use, or reach. So is food other than that of the fast variety not easy to obtain or not add to a visitor's comfort?

Sandy beaches. I can't think of any public, sandy beaches within Collingwood. I'd love to know where they are so I can walk there this summer with a towel and a book. All the beaches I can think of in town are limestone or pebble. Where is the sand? Surely not in Wasaga Beach!

Historical B&Bs Historical is used to mean old, antiquated and bygone, pertaining to past events. Historical B&Bs are those that existed in our past, not today. The proper word is historic, which means significant or remarkable. Historical means it has something to do with history. Historic means it has had an effect on history. So why are we not singing the praises of existing B&Bs?

Miles of all-season walking and hiking paths Sure, I was raised in the days when imperial measurement was used, and am still comfortable with miles, yards, feet and inches. But the nation changed to metric decades ago.**** Did I miss the announcement we've gone back to imperial after all these years? This is after all, a Canadian ad, in a Canadian publication, with Canadian spelling, aimed at predominantly Canadian readers. So why miles instead of kilometers?

Deep-water harbour How deep is the water in the harbour? Three or four meters at best I believe (and not dredged in at least a decade so perhaps silted up). There are nine deep-water ports listed for Canada. Collingwood does not appear on among them (Halifax, for example, is).

I can't actually find any listing for any inland harbours in Canada considered 'deep water.' Looking at Thunder Bay's harbour (which is not self-described as a 'deep-water' harbour'), I see it can handle ships "222.5 metres in length, 23.1 metres in width with a draft of 8.2 metres." Can Collingwood harbour take ships that large? Deep-water suggests you can bring big ships like aircraft carriers to dock. Can Collingwood harbour accommodate anything that large?

Why not actually write out the depth and be accurate rather than resort to (yet more) hyperbole?

Nationally-acclaimed theatres. There are two theatres in town - the Gayety and Galaxy. Since the term is plural, it means both must have received national acclaim, but from which national publication or national organization? Possibly the Gayety got notice for its heritage status. But why would a chain like Galaxy get national acclaim? A search on Google can't divulge any national acclamations for either theatre, let alone both.

The word acclaimed doesn't actually ascribe value or worth, or even significance. It means to welcome or salute with shouts or sounds of joy and approval; applaud; to announce or proclaim with enthusiastic approval; to praise enthusiastically and often publicly; applaud; to acknowledge or declare with enthusiastic approval. Anybody or anything can be acclaimed by simply clapping, as council does when a junior hockey team is presented to receive praise for their achievement. That doesn't confer value, merely praise.

But national acclaim is a little bigger: we have to get the whole country into the act - or at least receive acclaim from an organization or publication that reaches nationwide. And I can't find either online.

Canada's first designated heritage community. I knew we had a heritage district downtown, of course, but until I read the ad I was unaware that the entire community was so designated. Apparently Heritage Collingwood isn't aware of that designation either, because their Web site still shows maps that outline only the downtown heritage district, not the entire community. I wonder when that designation happened and why council wasn't informed. Sure affects a lot of developers and builders.

Versatile mountain-bike trails. I think I've ridden every inch of Collingwood's paths and trails in the past two years. They're wonderful for bicycling, in great part because Collingwood is pretty flat. The teensy changes in altitude you sometimes find don't deserve the description of "hill" - they're just small slopes. Sure, mountain bikes ride along them, but they're not specifically mountain-bike trails. They're general walking and cycling trails, without any serious challenge in them. There are great mountain-bike trails in the area - Kolapore, the Loree Forest, Blue Mountain. These offer serious biking trails. But they're not in Collingwood any more than the sandy beaches are.

Maybe I'm not paying enough attention to the wording. After all, the ad says we offer "versatile" mountain-bike trails. Perhaps that's the clue. Well...

Versatile means capable of or adapted for turning easily from one to another of various tasks, fields of endeavor, etc. It also means having or capable of many uses: a versatile tool and adaptable, all-around and handy. Most of those terms don't relate to trails because a trail is a passive object, not an active one like a tool. A trail just is - it isn't adaptable. A lifeform can be adaptable, so can a tool. And a bike rider can be adaptable, too. But a trail? I don't think so. They may be trails for versatile riders, but trails simply aren't "versatile" by any acceptable definition of the word.

Style. This is personal. The body of the ad is written in all lowercase letters, with the exception of the word "Canada's." Some readers may find that style cute and trendy; I find it annoyingly artificial, to the point of being cloying. E. E. Cummings managed to get away with writing many of his poems in lowercase because he was an artist and when he started writing, in the 1920s, he was a ground-breaker for unconventionality. Don Marquis wrote his Archy & Mehitabel newspaper columns in lowercase even earlier (starting in 1916). So it's not a new style. But since the invention of the personal computer, when programs had to be written in lowercase letters, and the subsequent arrival of the Internet where barely-literate writers post forum comments and send emails in nothing but lowercase (or alternatively in all capitals), the attractiveness of the style has worn off considerably. Today it merely looks contrived. What's wrong with using proper capitalization?

The good news. It's not all bad. The author of the ad correctly hyphenated word pairs like "world-class," "all-season," "mountain-bike"and "deep-water." That's a plus: I've too often seen them unhyphenated, looking like strangers crowded together on a train platform. The plural "farmers' market" was correctly punctuated - we too often see it as "farmer's market" suggesting only one farmer is in attendance. And no concession was made to Americans in spelling the word "neighbouring." However, "Visit" was incorrectly capitalized in the final line.

Overall, too many negatives outweigh the few positives in this advertisement. It's meant to excite and attract, but instead I feel it will discourage readers - at least those few who approach writing and advertising with a critical eye (I hope it's a growing segment of the population). It doesn't bode well for the future "branding" exercise (we're still waiting to see the results of that, and to measure the value of the results compared to our tax dollars spent but I suggest the cost will exceed the return).

Once again it underlines the need for a corporate communications officer to oversee the output of the town. Perhaps in future such ads should be vetted by council before they go to print.

~~~~~
* The basic text comes from this page on the EDO site.
** Off Sunset Point, where swimming is actually forbidden as indicated by several posted warning signs all along that stretch of beach.
*** Yes, we did host one North American Championship here, but since then? The 2008 Canadian Windsurfing Championships were held at Squamish, BC. Is Collingwood even being considered as an event site for any international championship event? If we are truly world-class, surely we should be.
**** Actually, metric has been legal in Canada since 1871, although it was not enforced as a national standard until an Act of Parliament was passed in 1971. Various level of implementation were invoked over the next 15 years.