When I was growing up, advertisements used to be a straightforward matter. Someone would come on air and tell you to buy X product because it was good for you or it did what you wanted. Accompanying the ad were jingles, or if it was on TV, there were prominent and seductive displays of the product. Bottom line was that at the end of the ad, you knew exactly what had been advertised and why you should think about buying it.

Fast forward to 2009 in America, and advertising has become...

I remember a story that someone once told me about a student they knew. This student had managed to inflict some injury on himself (I can't remember how now), and as you might expect, he cried out in pain. But the cry was very strange: it went "Yeee... I mean, Ouuuuuch!"

Remembering this story makes me thing about how we vocalise our pain. Certainly in our student's case, it's doubtful that he was in that much agony if he could stop himself from expressing his pain in the traditional...