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URGENCY WORDS |
Although urgency words are concerned with time, they are usually clustered with words suggesting shortage, scarcity, or availability.
Some cable channels for home shopping are notorious for their urgency
pleas, as described here by Virginia Heffernan's article "An
Urgent, Breathless TV Plea: Buy Now!" (New York Times,
December 19, 2005):
"For fans of shopping television, fewer than 150 shopping hours remain
until Christmas, with operators always, always standing by. It's an urgent
season, and urgency is the forte of the big home-shopping channels, where
hour after hour the breathless hosts pitch their wares at an auctioneer's
pace, and merchandise comes in limited editions perpetually poised on
the brink of selling out. With home shopping, it's forever your last chance
to buy.
As a ShopNBC host warned recently about a fake Tiffany lamp, "This
is going to sell out today, absolutely, without question." Watch
out, she went on: "Once they are sold out, we will never bring them
again." About an elaborate cosmetics promotion, another ShopNBC host
exclaimed: "There's no way, shape or form that Borghese will do this
in January! There's no way, shape or form that Borghese will do this in
February!"
Urgency words are often used by persuaders to blur the differences between contrary and contradictory relationships, by suggesting falsely that there is an "either/ or" situation -- "now or never."
Logically, contrary relationships (e.g. black, white, red, green, blue) leave many other options available. Contradictory relationships (black and non-black) set up only two categories: X and non-X.
Folk sayings such as "Strike while the iron is hot" and "seize the day" are urgency pleas. However, folk sayings are usually counter-balanced by others recommending the opposite, such as: "Haste makes waste" and "Marry in haste, repent in leisure."
Common urgency words:
Beat the Crowd
Clearance
Close-Out
Deadline
Don't wait
Final
Going Fast
Going Out-of-Business
Hurry
Last Chance
Last Day
Limited Offer
Never Again
No later than
Now, Now or never
Offer Expires
Once in a Lifetime
One Day Only
Opportunity Knocks
Promptness Bonus
Rush
Sale
Time running out
Time-sensitive material
Today Only
Weekend Sale
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