We are a nation of talkers. We love to talk and we love to hear
others talk (hence the popularity of talk shows). Studies show that
the average person spends 20 percent of his waking hours talking.
In one year that would fill 66 books of 800 pages each. Thus it
stands to reason that speaking so many words makes it easy to get
ourselves into trouble. This can be especially true when there is a
reporter near. Here are some statements by celebrities that I bet
they wish they could take back:
We are a nation of talkers. We love to talk and we love to hear others talk (hence the popularity of talk shows). Studies show that the average person spends 20 percent of his waking hours talking. In one year that would fill 66 books of 800 pages each. Thus it stands to reason that speaking so many words makes it easy to get ourselves into trouble. This can be especially true when there is a reporter near. Here are some statements by celebrities that I bet they wish they could take back:
– Singer Mariah Carey was asked her opinion on the world’s hunger problem. She responded, “Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean I’d love to be skinny like that but not with all those flies and death and stuff.”
– Miss Alabama was asked the following question in the 1994 Miss Universe contest: “If you could live forever, would you and why?” Her answer: “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever.”
– And then there’s Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank, explaining why we should export toxic wastes to Third World countries: “I’ve always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted.”
– Mayor Marion Barry of Washington, D.C., when asked to comment on the rampant crime rate in his city, said, “Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.” That’s kind of like mayor Frank Rizzo’s explanation of his cities problems: “The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It’s only the people who make them unsafe.”
– One of my favorites was a comment by Brooke Shields when she was lobbying to become the spokesperson for a federal antismoking campaign: “Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.”
Then there are the classic examples from advertising, where a company intended to say one thing but quite another message was conveyed:
– Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American ad campaign: “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.”
– In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan, “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation,” came out as, “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.”
– The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, “Salem – Feeling Free,” got translated in the Japanese market into “When smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be empty.”
– When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America it was unaware that “no va” means “it won’t go.” After the company figured out why it wasn’t selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets as the Caribe.
– When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” However, the company mistakenly thought the Spanish word “embarazar” meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that “It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”
– An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope’s visit, but instead of saying the desired, “I Saw the Pope” in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed “I Saw the Potato.”
Would you agree that words often get us in trouble? How often does the husband come home from work after a bad day, and yell at his wife, who then gets upset and snaps at the oldest son, who, in turn, hits his little brother, who then goes outside and kicks the dog, who then chases cat, who scratches the baby, who bites the head off her Barbie Doll. Now men, wouldn’t it be lot simpler if you just came home and bit the head off Barbie?
How easy it is to get ourselves in trouble with what we say? How big a challenge is it to speak words that build up rather than tear down? For the next couple of weeks we will take a hard look at one of the greatest challenges each of us faces: how to control our tongue.
