Back when I was just a snot-nosed little brat, I remember seeing a Tex Avery cartoon titled "Symphony In Slang."
This short little cartoon was almost entirely in slang (thus the title).
When I started studying copywriting and learned the value of using slang in my ads, I looked everywhere for it.
I checked video stores, combed the Cartoon Network website and scoured the Internet.
Nada.
There were a few sites in the search engines that had it.
But when I clicked on the links I'd find it was yanked offline for copyright violations or because the url had changed.
Recently I finally found it.
And yep... it was sitting there on good ol' Youtube.
Long story short -- I went through and extracted all the relevant slang terms.
Depending on what you sell, some of this stuff may be kind of hard to work into your story copy.
But a lot of it can still be used or adapted for a variety of different products and services.
For example, you could treat some of them like "formula headlines" -- where you substitute one or more words with words that fit with the story you're telling in your copy.
At the very least they should spark some useful ideas you can use.
Anyway, some of the best ads ever written are literally packed with slang terms.
I hope you get as much value out of the ones below as I have.
Slang Swipe File
born with a silver spoon in your mouth
grew up overnight
up at the crack of dawn
back to my hole in the wall
beside myself with anger
make some dough
beautiful girl stepped into the picture
I got goose pimples
clothes fit her like a glove
paintin' the town red
let her hair down
she ate like a horse
my money was runnin' out on me
left me in a pickle
I gave him the slip
he drew a gun on me
the law was on my heels
the judge tried to pump me
put my foot in my mouth
sent me up the river
felt myself going to pot
raised a big stink
going though a lot of red tape
threw myself at her feet
got on her high horse
couldn't touch her with a ten foot pole
guess the cat had her tongue
after that I went to pieces
we chewed the rag a while
I heard from the grapevine
that burned me up
knew he was just feeding her a line
the guy spent his money like water
outside it was raining cats and dogs
I was feeling mighty blue... and everything looked black
a tear ran down my cheek
hot footed it over to Mary's apartment
I died laughin'
About Author :
Ben Settle is a direct response copywriter and author of "The Copywriter's Cheat Sheet" -- which contains over 300 pages of advanced copywriting secrets and rare swipe file ads not easily found anywhere else. You can get a free copy of his book and read his latest copywriting ideas and tactics at http://bensettle.com
