Advertising patter
U 15.2192: Rush your order and play a slick ace.
‘Rushing your order’ was a standard formula in the mail-order world of America around the time of the First World War. Here’s one of many instances:
Stop paying exorbitant prices for groceries... Establish yourself with the great Consumers’ Wholesale Grocery Co. And cut the high cost of living. Rush your order today. [...] Use the coupon.
Popular Mechanics (1917) December, p. 114
U 15.2201: It’s a lifebrightener
The advertiser of amazing new products for washing clothes – always astounding in their ability to produce whiteness out of grey – found ‘life-brightener’ a useful expression around Bloomsday 1904 in this medley of Americanisms:
Work-Saver, clothes-saver, clothes-whitener, life brightener – Fels-Naptha. Cuts wash-day in half. Fels-Naptha. Philadelphia.
Baltimore American (1904) 16 July
U 15.2203: It is immense, supersumptuous.
‘Super-sumptuous’ was a popular advertising cliché of the 1920s – though it is recorded earlier too. Here’s an ad from the Washington Post of 4 December 1921, selling the delights of the ‘only musical show in town’, ‘first time in Washington’, ‘The mirthful, Melodious, Magnificent, Music-comedy from the Ambassador’s Theater, New York’:
Poli’s... The Rose Girl. Super Sumptuous Anselm-Goetzl Production.
(Amusements section) p. 5
U 15.2201: A buck joyride to heaven becomes a back number.
We might note that ‘Elijah took a joy ride to heaven in a chariot with horses of fire’ in Gulian Lansing Morrill’s Devil in Mexico (1917), p. 186. Morrill was Pastor of the People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
U 15.2202-3: It’s just the cutest snappiest line out.
Again this is familiar from American advertisements of the day:
Children’s Gingham Dresses. Special. Large assortment of Children’s Dresses in a wide variety of styles, the cutest, snappiest dresses that ever left a factory.
Warren Evening Times (Pennsylvania) (1918) 3 May, p. 4
How about a Spring Cap? We have the snappiest line out this season, and the prices are right.
Iowa City Press-Citizen (1921) 2 March, p. 2
Harald Beck/John Simpson
Silly sunphonies: does Jesus want me for a sunbeam?
Slippery gamblers Philately is for bumboosers
Advertising patter Next stop Paradise!
The Great Harmonia and the music of the spheres
Search by keyword (within this site): Religion Advertising Theatre America Fashion Mail order