Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant for more than 30 years.
He may be best known for his headline “Speak Spanish [French, German, etc.] Like a Diplomat!” This familiar series of ads sold spectacular numbers of recorded foreign language lessons for Audio-Forum, generating revenues that total in the tens of millions of dollars. In the process, the ad achieved the status of an industry classic.
Don’s work is mentioned in three major college advertising textbooks, and examples of his promotions are cited in the books Million Dollar Mailings (1992) and World's Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters (1996). In a column in Advertising Age, his name was included in a short list of direct-marketing “superstars.”
He has a parallel career as a writer on language and wordplay. His celebration of spoonerisms, Cruel and Unusual Puns (Dell, 1991), received rave reviews and quickly went into a second printing. His second book was Acronymania (Dell, 1993).
Recently, Don retired from full-time copywriting in order to focus on other interests, including his passion for “recreational linguistics.” He is at work on a new book in that genre. He is a regular contributor to the magazine Word Ways and writes “The Language Perfectionist,” a weekly column on grammar and usage, for Early to Rise.
Don is author of The Versatile Freelancer,an e-book from American Writers and Artists, Inc. (AWAI) that shows copywriters – and almost anyone – how to diversify their careers into consulting, training, critiquing, and speaking.
Read Don Hauptman's previous newsletter articles below:
Are you familiar with the expression functional shift? Whatever your response, I can guarantee that you’ve encountered this linguistic device, and even made use of it. The term is applied to a word that “migrates” from one part of speech to another. Probably the most common type occurs when nouns are redeployed as verbs. Here are [...]
By Don Hauptman | Thu, Nov 18, 2010
Decades ago, now-defunct McCall’s magazine ran a marketing campaign that featured portraits of sexy dames, including Carly Simon and Tina Turner, along with the tongue-in-cheek caption “One of the boring housewives who reads McCall’s.” Over a period of months, the trade journal Advertising Age published numerous letters from readers, ferociously debating whether the correct word should [...]
By Don Hauptman | Thu, Nov 11, 2010
At a conference I attended recently, a speaker referred to “the little homunculus in the brain.” The word homunculus is Latin for “little man,” so the word little is redundant. I’ve written about redundancies several times in this column. But the error is so common that another report is probably not, er… redundant. Here are a [...]
By Don Hauptman | Thu, Nov 4, 2010
In my reading, I continue to spot ambiguously written sentences. Such errors can create miscues that confuse readers and force them to pause, backtrack, and reread in an effort to understand what is really meant. Consider these examples: “I stand behind no one in my enthusiasm and dedication to improving our society and especially our health [...]
By Don Hauptman | Thu, Oct 28, 2010
A supermarket recently opened in my neighborhood. The managers promptly posted a sign boasting “Low prices everyday.” This is a frequent error, though that doesn’t make it any less excusable. The sign should read “Low prices every day.” The adjective everyday precedes a noun, as in “The life of the medieval peasant was filled with everyday chores.” [...]
By Don Hauptman | Thu, Oct 21, 2010
Consider these examples, found on the Internet: “What else should I try and learn?” “I want to try and get a [martial arts] belt here sometime.” “The worst ways to try and save money on a European vacation” In his excellent and useful new usage guide The Accidents of Style, Charles Harrington Elster offers this advice: “Try and is a [...]
By Don Hauptman | Thu, Oct 7, 2010
Consider the following examples, found via online search: “As far as skilled labor is concerned only 9 percent stated that it was easy to find now, while 59 percent said it was difficult. Three years before 1991, the percentages were 8 and 61, respectively….” “The authors are from Harvard University, Harvard University, Harvard University, and University of [...]
By Don Hauptman | Thu, Sep 30, 2010
An online search turned up these specimens: “Decline in fog threatens California’s iconic redwood ecosystems” “The 100 Most Iconic TV Show Intros Of All Time” “I’m going to show you how to make an iconic poster using the new Vector Set 18 from Go Media’s Arsenal.” Originally, iconic meant “characteristic of an icon” — an image or representation, often [...]
By Don Hauptman | Thu, Sep 23, 2010
It’s been a while since this column has presented a roundup of “confusables” — pairs of words that are commonly mistaken for one another. So here’s a new set, inspired, as always, by genuine media mistakes: “Many who do admit that privacy regulations restricting the use of information about consumers have costs believe they are born [...]
By Don Hauptman | Thu, Sep 16, 2010
Here’s another collection of errors I encountered recently in major publications: “[The scandal at Hewlett-Packard] has stunted a long search by HP’s employees for stability and pride at the patriarch of Silicon Valley companies.” A patriarch is defined literally as “a man who rules a family, clan, or tribe,” and, by extension, “the founder or original head [...]
By Don Hauptman | Thu, Nov 25, 2010
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