Until this year's political campaigns, who ever heard or read the word “traction” or “resonate” referring to public reaction to a campaign promise by just about anyone running for office?

And here is “nuance,” formerly solely in the province of sophistry and a computer software company, being tossed around like a Tiffany-leather basketball.

Oh, the nerve of these Socratic parvenus, letting loose with “louche.” Until this year, that word was the exclusive property of The New Yorker and me, both of whom used it to tell people, “I know a word that you don't, nyaah, nyaah.”

(No, I'm not going to define “louche.” Look it up, while we go on to meatier stuff such as what's wrong with “define.”)

SELL, DON'T DEFINE

Effective direct marketing copy offers squats on two bases: Emotion-grabbing words and action-demanding verbs and adverbs.

Typically, advertising writers look for adjectives. That's traditional, but it doesn't maximize effectiveness. Adverbs, the Cinderellas of communication, have the advantage of seeming to be less obviously promotional.

Pedants obfuscate. Marketers sell. But more significant are two points every successful one-to-one salesperson knows implicitly:

• Active voice outsells passive voice.
• Imperative outsells declarative.

Accountants define. Definitions invariably lapse into passive voice. Lawyers proclaim. Proclamations invariably lapse into the declarative.

Check your words. Are you writing in a convivial, rapport-inducing style? That's good. Is your copy so convivial it's sophomoric? That's bad. The rules of 21st-century copywriting aren't the same as those that applied 15 years ago. Why? Because that great leveler, the World Wide Web, has proletarianized communication. E-mails are coincidentally aimed at multimillionaires and minimum-wagers, with no adjustments in wording.

SYNONYMS AREN'T SYNONYMOUS

What is the difference between “Synonyms aren't synonymous” and “Synonyms are not synonymous”?

The journeyman copywriter might say, “No difference exists.” The meistersinger says, “Factually the information is the same, but we deal in force-communication, manipulating word-mantles that project facts in force-communication terms.”

Forever locked in my memory is a conversation I had with a colleague in which I asked his opinion of a marketing “expert” we both knew. “That man,” he said, “is not relevant.”

Note the power of “not” in this use. Suppose he had said, “That man is irrelevant.” Technically, the “ir” prefix means “not,” so technically the statement would have had the same meaning, and an uninvolved observer would have assumed the two were an exact parallel. But how about an involved observer? If we're after impact, the power of “irrelevant” is fractional against “not relevant.” If we want a throwaway, we use “irrelevant.”

So we have one of hundreds of mini-rules we can and should add to our rhetorical arsenal:

“Not” has greater force than parallel substitutes.

Don't believe it? Ask some outsiders to evaluate the two, comparatively. They'll confirm.

So “This is not possible” states a final position more profoundly than “This is impossible.” “In my opinion this situation is not reversible” is more absolute than “In my opinion this situation is irreversible.” “I am not certain” is more definitive than “I am uncertain.” “The wound is not significant” is more definitive than “The wound is insignificant.”

Verbs are a heavy determinant of reader/listener reaction. Construct a sentence in which you interchange ran, rushed, sped, sprinted, scurried, darted, jogged, loped and any other equivalents that come to mind. Each generates a different emotional reaction.

Voilà! The right choice of verbs for a specific situation is another separation between the journeyman and the meistersinger.

Still unconvinced that a single word can prime or clog an emotional pump of receptivity? Proof is as easy as the difference between sexy and sensual. A man describes a woman as sexy. Both image and prospect cheapen: other men look at legs and appurtenances. The man describes the same woman as sensual. Both image and prospect add dimension: other men look at lips, listen to the voice, turn on their imaginative engines.

A PET WORD-GRIPE

When a message is out of key within itself, with luck the result is confusion. Without luck, the result is rejection. Do you want either of those reactions?

The World Wide Web and its schizophrenic child e-mail have emphasized a stupidity I've previously criticized in these pages. Here's a credit card or service offer proudly labeled, “You've been pre-approved.”

Oh? If I'm pre-approved, what is the shoot-yourself-in-the-foot word doing there? Yes, that's the word — application. Hold it, buster. I'm pre-approved, so you're the applicant. I'm already firmly perched on Mount Olympus.

If we didn't see thoughtless word-stringing every day (and it's every day, not everyday), we'd think a marketer who's shooting for a positive reaction would know how to exploit the difference between a legal “application” and a phony pre-approval.

So if you've checked a name against a credit bureau and the prospect actually has a credit rating justifying pre-approval, the enclosure isn't an “application.” It's an acceptance form.

And what if the prospect is just a random name for which you've overpaid a list company? Same deal: It's “acceptance form.” When making the wording fit confounds you, go back to square one and realize that the name of the form is simply acceptance of an offer to do business, and the wording within the form can match any circumstance.

That brings us to the pet gripe of any professional communicator: Hitting a Web buyer with a two-by-four just at the moment when the marriage is about to be consummated — the word “submit.” Even subliminally, “submit” puts the customer in a position inferior to the vendor. That's far outside the boundary of professional salesmanship.

SOME PEOPLE NEVER LEARN

That subhead might have been “Some Professional Marketers Never Learn,” but the sample I'm looking at (in a classroom I'd say “at which I'm looking,” but this column is a communication, not a lecture) doesn't qualify as professional marketing.

It's a standard mailing from Capital One to an existing cardholder, who uses its card only when a source won't accept American Express. The envelope is as boilerplate as envelope copy can be: “DO NOT DISCARD — For Current Capital One^® Cardholder.” Then, in red, a poor rubber-stamp effect: “IMPORTANT INFORMATION ENCLOSED” (Fig. 1).

Even before knowing what's inside, don't you sense quickly that whatever it is isn't important? How right you are.

The first sentence of the letter: “I'm happy to let you know you're pre-selected to apply for this Capital One Visa^® Business Platinum Card offer!”

If you were teaching a basic course in copywriting and a C student handed in this deplorable example, wouldn't you either patiently explain it's an amateurish and non-motivational way to begin a letter to someone who already has your card? Or you might suggest switching to another course of study.

Discover, a competitor, has a page in a newspaper's freestanding insert (Fig. 2). Relevant and useful information is there, neatly buried under a headline: “Make your money worth More^SM.” Reading the ad — which I did reluctantly after the “Ugh” at the headline — I identified another technique that keeps journeymen on a plateau well below meistersingers: The card, internally, has been dubbed “More.” The word doesn't appear on the card, but the creative team obviously is more dedicated to pleasing management than to influencing readers.

An e-mail offer from First Plus Platinum Credit (Fig. 3) is headed: “Credt Line Notification #33345-H-50742.” Text, exactly as it appears on the screen, begins: “Attention! There Could be Big changes in your future. How would you like a 7,500 Unsecured Credt Line? Imagine, you could be purchasing many of the items you've always wanted!”

No, this isn't my typo and it isn't Direct's typo. Throughout, this execrable example of amateurism spells the word “Credt.” I Googled the spelling, and only because I was determined to penetrate what obviously was a proprietary misspelling, I penetrated the ridiculous acronym — “Credit, Receivables, and DeducTion.” Of what possible value is that to anyone except the blindly arrogant marketing team?

A MANTRA FOR 2009

You can see why wordsmithy isn't to be risked to dilettantes, beginners, or, apparently, credit card companies whose sales psychology is locked in the 1980s.

You also can see the logic behind the mantra of all of us who toil in the dungeons of direct response, where reliance on tradition and personal prejudices and a pat on the head by know-nothing superiors will result only in our being pushed down into a lower-level cage:

The purpose of a DR message is to cause the reader, viewer or listener to perform a positive act as the direct result of exposure to that message.

Any other purpose is ego-food with no caloric value.

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HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS (www.herschellgordonlewis.com) is the principal of Lewis Enterprises in Pompano Beach, FL. He consults with and writes direct response copy for clients worldwide.

Editor's note: This is one of an occasional group of articles on word use by Herschell Gordon Lewis, Direct's Curmudgeon-at-Large. He's widely regarded as an authority on the choice and use of words in marketing copy.