MediaVision Blog : Search Engine Marketing

Before I begin I’d like to point out that South Africa won the Rugby World Cup. I don’t mean to rub our superiority in the faces of the losing roses, kiwis, wallabees or jaguars. I just want to point it out. Okay.

I think that the greatest triumph for a writer is receiving a warm response to his writing. Having many people read your work is like the Webb Ellis for writers. They lust after a Digg frontpage, want to be Stumbled, Sphinned and bookmarked all over the place. There are a few ways to be noticed, and foremost among them is saying something sensational/brilliant, in a sensational/brilliant manner. This involves being the best (like South Africa is, at rugby). If you can’t do that – because it isn’t easy to win the toughest tournament in the world - be funny.

For instance, a well placed mondegreen (mishearing of words), like “another pie in the dust” could replace “another one beats the dust” which could refer to perhaps every other rugby team in the world in relation to the Bokke. You could use a snowclone (fill in the blanks of if x then y), for example, “take this embarrasing defeat TWICE (defending champions) and shove it. You could also use an eggcorn (which is a way of incorrectly saying “acorn”, but it still makes sense). For instance, the stars and stripes suffered a jar-dropping defeat against South Africa, (shame).

Whats the point? It’s not easy to be funny on paper, especially if you’re not really a trickster off it. It’s more a matter of spicing your sentences up, and keeping your readers fixed to the page, when its so easy to just click away from it. It’s a means of forming a new lingo that has arisen from a new medium – webspeak, if you like. But ultimately, it’s a means of differentiating yourself from the trillions of rugby players…I mean… writers in the world, and being the best (Bokke, we’re so proud).