grease copy
n.— «the Ginsu spots that he and Schiff collaborated on resonated and became part of pop culture precisely because they were absurd, recognized as camp at the time and parodied immediately (and for years after they first appeared). The opening line—“In Japan, the hand can be used like a knife . . . but this method doesn’t work with a tomato”—was an example of what Valenti calls “grease copy,” meant to grab viewers and slide them into the spot. “It was a startling interruption,” he says. “People took notice.”» —“Pointed Copy” by Rob Walker New York Times Dec. 31, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
How do you transform ancient Chinese script for use in the modern age? English uses a keyboard with just 26 letters, but the first Chinese typewriter looked like a small table under a huge disk with more than 4,000 characters. A new book chronicles...
Chase from Jacksonville, Florida, grew up in Sacramento, California, where kids played Rochambeau instead of rock, paper, scissors. Why the difference in names? Nobody knows. Folklorists call this a choosing game, and while the hand-game itself...