05.29.08
I Think, Therefore IAMS
Noted and cringed at:
A screen shot from the home page of us.iams.com, web site of IAMS Pet Food:
Yes, up there just above the picture of the dog eating a small alien, it says
Learn About 7 Signs of Healthy Vitality
One would hope it would be healthy. Vital in its original use (first recorded in Chaucer, according to OED.com) meant “infused with the essence of life.” The noun form vitality, in use by the late 1600s, originally meant the life force itself. Of course, more figurative meanings ensued, but at its core, vitality is life and the ability to sustain life. The IAMS slogan that you see to the left of the picture makes perfect sense in that context, though perhaps that wasn’t the marketing department’s intent: “Life’s Better.” Better than the alternative? Well, one would assume yes, but let’s return to “Healthy Vitality.”
The phrase is not technically repetitive, though it is redundant (in that redundant means “unnecessary” or “superfluous” and not necessarily duplicating). “Healthy vitality” is good. “Unhealthy vitality” is Dawn of the Dead.
Nonessential Side Note Alert: Vital as a noun appeared about a century after vitality–in the obsolete sense of “the essence of life.” As a noun meaning “something essential,” vital was created by backformation from vitals, which were the essential parts, and not a shortening of “vital signs” as it is used in the medical world today. End Nonessential (and therefore redundant) Side Note Alert.
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