Eight hundred words on one hundred years of writing
What Elbert Hubbard’s conviction, David Ogilvy ads, Grammarly, ChatGPT and a Woody Allen joke tell us about the evolution of writing
1. Elbert Hubbard’s conviction
In January 1913, Elbert Hubbard, a writer and publisher who liked to test boundaries, was found guilty in a New York court of sending “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy and indecent matter” through the postal service.
The Hartford Courant covered the story:
“Mr. Hubbard has literary ability of high type. He also possesses somewhat revolutionary ideas on many affairs which he frequently sets forth with brilliancy. His revolutionary notions were much more entertaining than dangerous, until he developed a most unfortunate relish for filth. His revolt against cleanliness has proved extremely annoying because he has spattered about his nastiness with such promiscuousness that an unreasonable amount of activity has often been demanded to avoid its smears.
“Mr. Hubbard has been given much to talking about souls and philosophy and aestheticism and the beauty of the human relation. Most of this was diverting. Some of it has been considered inspiring. But when he began to utilize a soiled tongue for its utterance it became noxious.”
The Boston Evening Transcript sub-heading read:
“General Satisfaction Among Decent People Predicted”
2. Elbert Hubbard’s lewd, obscene writing
The pieces that drew the ire of the lawmen?
Here’s one:
“The bride of a year entered a drugstore. The clerk approached.
— Do you exchange goods?, she asked.
— Oh, Certainly! If anything you buy here is not satisfactory we will exchange it.
— Well, here is one of those whirling-spray [contraceptive] affairs I bought of you, and if you please, I want you to take it back and give me a bottle of Mellin’s [baby] Food, instead.
And outside the storm raged piteously, and across the moor a jay-bird called to his mate, ‘Cuckoo, cuckoo!’”
3. David Ogilvy’s ad for Rolls-Royce
Ogilvy was the Scottish-born advertising icon and principal inspiration behind the TV show Mad Men.
In 1957, his agency won the Rolls-Royce account and he set about writing the ad copy that would create the biggest bang for his client’s buck.
He studied all the technical manuals and industry reviews, wrote 26 different headlines, and finally employed several writers from his agency to go through them all and give their views on which one worked best.
The winner:
“At sixty miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.”
The Ogilvy mantra fifty years ago was:
“We sell or else.”
The Ogilvy website’s About page now reads:
“Ogilvy has been growing brands and businesses since 1948. We continue that rich legacy through borderless creativity — operating, innovating, and creating at the intersection of talent and capabilities. Our experts in Public Relations, Consulting, Advertising, Health, and Experience work fluidly across 131 offices in 93 countries.”
4. Grammarly and the road to boredom
I have the Grammarly Chrome extension.
Grammarly is happy with the Hartford Courant word salad.
Grammarly thinks David Ogilvy’s Rolls-Royce headline is missing a comma.
5. ChatGPT and the brand of bland
A team of researchers at the University of Kansas built a tool that distinguishes academic papers written by humans and those written by AI with 99% accuracy.
Heather Desaire, the lead author, said:
“AI-written papers seemed to break down complexity, for better or for worse. But after a while, they had a really monotonous feel to them.”
Almost everyone with daily access to a computer has played with ChatGPT.
It’s an incredibly powerful tool useful in countless different ways.
The thing it’s probably least useful for?
Writing things you want other people to read.
6. Where writing goes next
The opening scene of Annie Hall shows Woody Allen speaking straight to camera.
There’s an old joke — um… two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ’em says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.” Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life — full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.”
Writing in the age of AI might be exactly the opposite of the food at that Catskill mountain resort, or life.
There’s going to be an infinite amount, and most of it is going to be terrible.
Infinite mind-numbing writing about infinite mind-numbing things.
In this world of infinite written content, how will you stand out?
The simple answer is:
Don’t produce lots of content that puts people to sleep.
Instead, produce writing with big ideas and big heart.
It will be a bit slower to materialise, and your brand will have a bit less of it.
Because writing is more than just words.
And because words need tone and rhythm and the space to live and breathe.
And because great writing starts a conversation with your heart and your soul.
And because great writing will rise like a sun above the sea of monotony so many of us are drowning in.
Shane Breslin is a Brand Writer. He writes for internationally ambitious businesses committed to doing whatever it takes to stand out in a sea of monotony. And he never minds ending a sentence — or an entire article — with a preposition. He can be reached at shane [at] shanebreslin [dot] com.
