WORDS THAT WORK: IT'S NOT WHAT YOU SAY, IT'S WHAT PEOPLE HEAR

Great book for people who's work depend on a lot of comunication.It contains lot of useful knowledge and explanation how to orginze ur words to get the message throu. Very well writen(not that I know anything about writing)but I found it easy to read and hard to put down.

Save your money. Mr Luntz has loaded this tome with lots of pointless trivia. There is a table of jargon along with their meanings. Did you know that "bling" means bright , flashy jewelry? Or how about this brilliant insight,"What's particularly striking about the new language is that it is coming not from the older elites of society who live in wealthy suburban neighborhoods but from the hip-hop youth culture found in America's urban areas." You will not be sharing these insights at your wealthy suburban tea parties or with your hip-hop, bling encrusted pals either.

The one word that came to mind as I tried to cull some knowledge from this work is 'puffery'. That is a word that works for this book. As a fellow market researcher I was hoping to gain some insight from a high visibility professional but as other reviewers have pointed out there is so much name dropping, political partisanship, and blathering that I could not finish the book. It is in need of a good editor, but apparently Luntz used the right words to talk them out of it. I was disappointed to have wasted my time.

Over the years I have read more business books than I care to remember. I am a "business book junkie" of sorts. While this is not "per se" a business book, it should be read by "business people." Why? Because business (marketing, selling, implementing, etc.) is mostly about effective communications. What and how we communicate is often the difference between success and failure.

I agree with another reviewer, this is not a great book, but then again there are very few great books. It is however a good one. While the author's anecdotes often appear "self serving," there are nonetheless significant insights that are presented in a clear and succinct fashion. Yeah, OK, maybe we have heard/read this kind of thing before, but not exactly in this particular way and not with the same kind of clarity.

I would especially recommend this book to anyone that uses words to make a living or simply to create an online presence. With the explosion of the blogosphere and social networking sites, this is a significantly large group. Our "digital footprints" tend to live for a very long time and we should take care to communicate well.

Frank Luntz shows us in detailed nuance that perception is reality. We cannot change reality but we can use words that that cause our message to be communicated and perceived closer to factual reality than to fiction. In other words if you want to get an effective message across it is not the words that people hear it is how they perceive them.

For example who would want to drill for oil in a pristine national wildlife area, with beautiful mountains, cascading streams, flowers and bucolic fields. This is how the environmentalists portray the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge complete with pictures showing this. Unfortunately these idyllic pictures are taken hundreds of miles away from the actual proposed drilling site.

If pictures were shown of the real proposed drilling site to the public we would describe it as a barren frozen wasteland, highly inhospitable, and someplace nobody would want to visit in their right mind, think extreme cold, ice, kind of like Antarctica.

So if perception should match reality and putting ideology aside, which words would show a more honest representation of the area?

The answer is self-evident and this is what Mr. Luntz is arguing for. Surprisingly many people construe him as being politically motivated, not realizing that he sells his services to both sides of the aisle. I think what people misunderstand is that his services are infinitely more useful to the Republicans than to the Democrats due to their political messages. How can environmentalist groups get you to side with them on ANWR if they represent it truthfully? Again the answer is self-evident.

Now that I have brought up politics, it is interesting to read this book side by side George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives the way he approaches the issues is startling. While Luntz is about using words that most closely fit with reality, Lakoff is about changing perception to match party ideology. Lakoff argues that in order to swing voters to the democratic goals, such as environmentalism you must use words that change their perceptions.

Beautiful mountains, cascading streams, flowers and bucolic fields.

It probably does not need to be said, but changing a person's perception with half-truths by using words to fit an ideology is a form of propaganda and unfitting of any major political party.

I highly recommend this book, read it alongside Lakoff's to show the glaring difference in the truthfulness of each parties message. In the end what turns most people off a particular message is when they have found out they have been lied to. In this case Luntz wins hands down.