The flowery language of Starbucks
January 31, 2008 5 Comments
It is difficult to associate the corporate behemoth of Starbucks with a warm setting and a product whose preparation is characterized by integrity, but that is what the romantic CEO and marketing consultants seem to have in mind for it.
Because I think of corporate writing as partly responsible for banishing originality and passionate language from the workplace, I found it interesting that those associated with Starbucks speak with such effusive regret about Starbucks’ corporatization. It is as if they are repressed English Ph.Ds, dying to inject some excitement into their work. Take the words of innovation consultancy chief executive Geoff Vuleta. He says Starbucks jumped the shark by “replacing mystique with relentless commerce,” and he waxes eloquent on that original mystique:
We all remember our initial encounters with Starbucks: the exoticism of new language, space, sounds and smells [...] Fast-forward a decade, and the first thing that jumps out is that the mystique that so thoroughly defined the initial experience is conspicuously absent — trampled in the stampede of proliferation.
It is entirely fitting of the value placed upon consumption that a literary phrase like “stampede of proliferation” is used to describe one’s diappointment with a fast food corporation, but perhaps it is also sympathetic. After all, if our days are made better by the small pleasure of sipping a great cup of coffee in a pleasant space, maybe that should inspire poetry.
I like Starbucks, but in the end it is just an over-priced cup of coffee.
Also, what I’ve disliked in a very minor way in recent years is the “As I See It” writings they put on the cups.
I don’t read them, but I know the blather is printed right under my thumb. Not good.
Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com
Regarding Obama:
I don’t know where else in the blog to put this, but I agree with Volcker entirely!:
“Volcker, Former Fed Chairman, Endorses Obama’s Presidential Bid
By Kristin Jensen
Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama won the endorsement of former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, his campaign said.
The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the endorsement on its Web site, citing a statement from Volcker. Volcker said he had been reluctant in the past to endorse candidates in political campaigns, yet had decided that “a new leadership and a fresh approach” were needed, the Journal said.”
Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com
On Edwards:
“Help The Poor? Edwards Can’t Be Bothered”
at Rudely Stamped
Michael Blaine
http://www.rudelystamped.blogspot.com
In a Foucauldian sense, the normalization of corporate-speak is a repressive force.
It’s coincidental to see your post about corporate language. I like to find the inadvertent poetry embedded in workplace language. I just started a new blog so I can post some of these poems.
Keep up the great writing and blogging. I enjoy it.
We had a great poetry textbook in high school (c 1970). Wish I could remember its name, so I could track down a copy.
Anyway, I do remember an example of inadvertent poetry from a physics text that the textbook quoted. I know it’s not the same thing this blog entry concerns, but the entry brought it to mind:
And hence no force, however great,
Shall draw a cord, however fine,
Into a horizontal line,
Which shall be absolutely straight…