Language techniques — advertisements, news and appeals

It halves the price for students after six and puts the actual figure on it — ten yuan becomes five — so the saving is not a claim but a number. And it tells them to bring their books and stay as long as they like until ten, which is exactly what a student wants in the weeks before an exam.

Families whose children have grown out of last year's uniform — the advertisement says so itself, that children grow fast and last year's clothes are already too small. Families who would rather not spend on a uniform that lasts a year, because you bring one piece, take another and pay nothing. And families new to the school, who are told directly that they may come and need not bring anything the first time.

What it asks of you is tiny — one dish, anything at all. What you get back is put as a sum rather than a promise: cook alone and you make one dish and eat one dish, but with eight people there are eight. And the part people dread is dealt with before they can raise it — everyone washes up together and it is over in ten minutes.

She opens with three questions in a row — when did you last throw clothes out, why, was it because they were short, or big, or had a small tear — which makes the listener answer privately and arrive at the problem themselves instead of being told they have one. The three faults are also a list, and the list is exactly what the service fixes, so the answer is already waiting. Then she sets two numbers side by side, thirty yuan for a new one against two to alter this one, which does the arguing without an argument. She ends with an instruction so small it is hard to refuse — just bring it — and a sum that turns three hours into three garments.

He builds the whole report on a before and after: three months ago the shopkeepers said it would not work and nobody would come, and now there are thirty per cent more people on the street. The turn is marked by a question he asks and answers himself — 'and now?' — which makes the listener wait half a second for the number. The strongest evidence is not his: he quotes a shopkeeper saying 'I was wrong' and opening at seven, and an admission from the other side carries more weight than any claim of his own. He then gives the objection room — deliveries are harder — which makes him sound like a reporter rather than a supporter, and closes by handing the decision to the listener and the city.

People who are busy in the daytime, since it runs from seven to nine every weekday evening and the ground is lit after dark. People who want to move without competing — no sign-up, no team shirt, no match, no score, which removes every reason a casual player usually stays away. People with nobody to play with, who are told they can come alone and will find others there. And anyone who wants it often rather than once: it is open Monday to Friday, every day.

She says the closing time and then corrects the number nobody had questioned — 'ten o'clock, not six' — which makes the listener notice a change they might have read straight past. Home is then listed rather than described: a television, younger brothers and sisters, someone calling you to eat, and the list is cut off flat: 'none of that here'. Naming the distractions is more persuasive than praising the library, because the listener recognises their own evening in it. The offer comes as a run of removals — no buying anything, no saying how long you will stay — and the obvious objection is answered before it is raised: if there are not enough seats they open another room. Then three weeks is converted into twenty-one days, which makes a short period sound like a supply of something. She closes by refusing to push — how many days you come is your own business — which leaves the listener deciding rather than resisting.

She opens not with the service but with a picture of the listener holding a letter and staring at it, put as a question, so the people it is for recognise themselves before they are asked anything. The help is made small and concrete as a list — reading the letter, filling in the form, making the call — and the promise is 'we do it with you', with you rather than for you, which is easier to accept. 'It costs nothing' stands as a sentence of its own, so the usual reason for hanging up is gone. The real obstacle is shame, and she names it — 'you do not need to feel embarrassed' — after making the helpers unthreatening: they are students the age of your own children, and they grew up the same way. The last line returns to the first picture — their parents once held a letter and stared at it too — which turns the listener's situation into something ordinary that the helpers' own families have been through.