THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 28, 1995 TAG: 9506280444
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Commenting on words that are misused, I don't mean to be censorious, at least not often.
My aim simply is to chart the change in language or jump with joy at old words in new guise.
I jumped upon hearing what Digger Phelps, former Notre Dame basketball coach, had to say as he posed in a TV commercial beside a sleek, gleaming limousine. (To buy it would cost most of his viewers at least a year's income.)
``The way it looks allows you to drive it with confidence!'' he said.
What the deuce does that mean?
A whole new approach in selling cars, that's what.
Used to be, in ads to sell a car, a young woman in flowing draperies with streaming hair, stirred up by a wind machine just outside camera range, stood beside it. The message was that if you had the glamorous car, you'd catch her eye.
Indeed, that happened to me as a junior in high school when a car pulled up, the driver (a senior) opened its passenger door and a girl, whose books I was carrying, hopped into the car without so much as a wave as it drove away.
She left the books with me.
And that was a very old car; but as the only car in a student body of 2,200 it was a resplendent chariot in her eyes.
So what did I do with the books? Walked 15 blocks, placed the books at her door, rang the bell and, while listening to make sure someone came to the door, walked away.
Turned out right, though. Met someone at a dance I never forgot.
To return to Digger, in other times to instill confidence in a car's performance, the TV showed the engine, the stout chassis, or the collapsible steering wheel.
But now the looks alone of its exterior tell the buyer he or she can drive away without a worry about what's under the hood. It could be a pair of white mice in a rotating cage for all you know.
My second leap of joy is inspired by Charley Casserly, general manager of the Washington Redskins.
In a speech to the Norfolk Sports Club, as reported by our Jim Ducibella, Casserly set up far in advance his alibi for a losing season.
The Redskins have won only three games in each of the last two seasons; so what did Casserly tell Jack Kent Cooke about the lean outlook for this season?
``I told him, `I don't know anything about business, but I do know something about football - and if the Redskins were a stock, I'd buy every conceivable share I could.' ''
The Redskins, he said, ``are about to take off. We've got a lot of young players whose names you haven't heard a lot. You're going to hear a lot more about them the next six months. I told him we're not there, yet. We still need one more offseason, but that's all it's going to take and we're going to get there.''
Isn't that a wondrous spiel? Hail to the Redskins! Follow them through Ducibella's canny columns and listen to his radio talk show Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to noon on WGH, 1310 AM. by CNB