Snap, crackle, pop.
Plop plop, fizz fizz...Tastes great, less filling.
Change you can believe in.
Slogans have power. A few words evoke a whole constellation of ideas, memories and feelings.
Stay with me, now... Radio operators use a “phonetic alphabet” because letters and some numbers sound too much alike. So in the usual phonetic alphabet the letter “a” becomes “alpha”, “b” becomes “bravo”, “9” becomes “niner”, and so on. And WTF becomes “whiskey tango foxtrot.”
In 2007 photographer Ashley Gilbertson published Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War. I heard Gilbertson say in an interview that he used that title because he heard this constantly on the radio channels in Iraq. “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” Many of the combat personal were young and, safe to say, familiar with text messaging and the internet, so “WTF” was already a natural comment/question for them. Add to this mix the f-bomb problem. The single word that's still the potentially most offensive, at least in the US, is “fuck.” I don't blame the FCC for this, but they could have fixed it years ago with a little free speech. No big deal, perhaps, but as with all things naughty, WTF and it's phonetic equivalent is a little more evocative for it.
Muzafer Sherif, the famous pioneer social psychologist, said, “(S)logans catch almost spontaneously when (and not before, because only a few might notice them) they stand out as short-cut characterizations of the direction and temper of the time and situation. … (S)logans are short-cut expressions arising in confused and critical situations. This does not mean that these short-cuts necessarily express the true and objective solution of the problems they are facing.” (1)
Short-cut characterization of the direction and temper of the time. WTF? You think?
Exactly right. It's perfect.
1. Muzafer Sherif, "The psychology of slogans." Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1937, 32, 450-461 archived on the web at: http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/Sherif/Sherif_1937b.html
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