“More Good News for Your Heart” says the headline on the back of a Cheerios box. (Cheerios have oats, and oat fiber, studies have found, reduces bad cholesterol.) A joyous phrase, “good news for your heart”--one bright enough for a Rodgers & Hart song (e.g., “My heart stood still”; “The heart is quicker than the eye”; “If my heart gets in your hair . . .”).
A couple of generations ago, the essayist and children's book writer E.B. White was shocked, shocked, at advertising’s degradation of language (his bete noire: “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should”). But language is always being degraded, and being revived thanks to someone’s imaginative energy. Like the Cheerios copywriter’s.
Or, need I say, like White’s. His college composition teacher, William Strunk, Jr., had written a grammar book, The Elements of Style, that was long out of print. In 1959, White revised and published it, modestly remarking, “Longer, lower textbooks are in use in English classes nowadays, I daresay--books with upswept tail fins and automatic verbs.”
Yep, ad language. Despite his protestations, White in fact loved it, because, used ironically (and how else can an educated person use it?), it showed his cleverness and restrained his sentimentality.
