99.44% pure

[Michael H Covarrubias]

I remember one of Ivory's jingles.  It was something like

I want my clean as clean as Ivory
It's got to be 99.44.
I want my clean as clean as Ivory
Nothing less--nothing more.

I had to wonder why "more" would be so awful.  The jingle soon changed and
dropped the rhyme.

Quoting Alison Murie <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM>:

> Rummaging in the files, recalled this thread.  The "ninety-nine &
> forty-four one hundredths percent pure"  claim was was entirely fictional.
> For all practical purposes it was 100% pure, but the other had an
> authoritative ring to it that "100%" had long lost. That *exactitude* was
> simply arbitrarily imposed on the ad campaign.  Some P&G adman disclosed
> this many years ago....and the disclosure didn't do them any harm either!
> AM
> ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
> Market Worship is just a way of Sanctifying Bullying
> ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^


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   English Language & Linguistics
   Purdue University
   mcovarru at purdue.edu

   web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru
  <http://wishydig.blogspot.com>

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