Digital BW, The Print

At 2:05 PM -0700 4/22/05, Phillip Fisher wrote:

>Perhaps a better word could have been chosen.
>...
>But the fact that a word was established, from a business 
>standpoint, was crucial.
>...
>I applaud the industry innovators for picking a word with ....


Phil --

You, I, and everybody else, knows that "Industry Innovators" didn't 
pick the word.

Some cretin with an English/French dictionary, and no knowledge of 
colloquial French, had a gallery somewhere and wanted to sell some 
inkjet prints.

He knew that people who didn't know squat about art, but wanted 
something on their walls, wouldn't buy "common, grotty, 
computer-generated inkjet prints" that, to their mind, anyone could 
make in their spare bedroom.

So he thought what any avaricious cretin would:

Obfuscate away your problems!

(And what better language to choose for obfuscation than French: Most 
Americans have trouble pronouncing French words and phrases, and 
French always sounds much more refined and "Continental" than 
English. Especially when spoken condescendingly by a waiter in a 
white suit.)

Obfuscation is, after all, a time-honored method of increasing sales:

First make the customer feel that he (or she) is stupid because they 
can't understand what you're saying in some obscure jargon. Then the 
customer, unwilling to show their ignorance by asking for an 
explanation, will assume that the unintelligible words or phrases 
have positive implications. Thus they buy the product to prove their 
intelligence and sophistication. Q.E.D.

It's a good sales technique, so long as you like to treat your 
customers like ignorant cattle. (Though it's a treatment that can 
come back to haunt you once they realize they've been duped, and have 
told their friends.)

Aside the extraneous analysis of unscrupulous salesmanship above, the 
squirt-promoting cretin in question made a strategic error.

So do those who would jump on his bandwagon.

Giclee was a seriously wounded term from it's advent, but it's future 
is undeniable:

Guys will forever nudge their girlfriends in shops that sell 
'giclees,' whisper in their ears, laugh with them, and walk away 
without making a purchase.

Debs who've "unknowingly" purchased a 'giclee' and hung it on their 
wall will blanch at the first crude joke about it during a party, 
feel faint during the male-jokester-dominated explanation, lay low 
for the duration, hide the "obscenity" that made them a laughingstock 
in their own home, and never touch it again. And they'll be mad. 
Really mad...

Remember, there's nothing as dangerous as an angry Deb....


-=-Dennis






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