Today, some random dispatches from the Word Front...

—Power Play — "What would you like the power to do?" When I first encountered this slogan in an ad for Bank of America, I initially responded, "I want it to stay on, especially during severe weather!"

Silly me. It took just a moment to realize the bank was asking not whether I wanted the electricity to stay on, but which financial powers I wanted to exercise. (And, if the lights could stay on as I was exercising these powers, that would be great too!)

This reminded me of another ad slogan that triggers a similar misdirection: "Nothing is better than Aleve." If nothing is better than Aleve, I say, I'll simply take nothing.

—Money and Mercy — Speaking of bank ads, here's Goldman Sachs' latest pitch for its Marcus line of personal loans and savings accounts: "You can money." I know people can "cash" in on good deals and "capitalize" on opportunities, but I didn't know they could actually "money."

Hey, wait a minute! Maybe this catchphrase is a direct appeal to people who stash their extra greenbacks in tin cans. Maybe it's really saying: "You can money — but now take that cash out of the cans and give it to us!"

This slogan is just the latest example of advertisers converting nouns to verbs for shock value: "Tonight we Tanqueray"; "Let's pizza"; "How do you burger?"

And it's not just advertising. When I asked a student the other day how her softball game turned out, she replied, "We mercy-ed them!" What she meant, of course, was that her team scored so many runs that the umpire invoked the "mercy rule" requiring the game to end if one team is ahead by 10 or more runs after five innings. Mercy!

—Teed Off — President Joe Biden recently launched two verbal golf shots; one flew straight and long down the center of the fairway, but the other sliced into the gallery.

By dubbing the recently signed bill to expedite the process of sending military aid to Ukraine "The Lend-Lease Act of 2022" (and by signing it on the day after V-E Day), he evoked the powerful legacy of the original Lend-Lease Act of 1941, which allowed the still-neutral U.S. to provide arms to the Allies during World War II.

But Biden's next verbal tee shot went awry when he dubbed the most fanatical of former President Donald Trump's supporters "ultra-MAGAs." Fore!

True, the prefix "ultra" does mean "beyond the normal, excessive," as in "ultraconservative." But "ultra" is used most often in neutral scientific words, e.g., "ultrasound," "ultraviolet," and in other contexts it often bears a benign, favorable connotation, e.g., "ultramarathon," "ultramodern." Just ask the marketers of Quilted Northern Ultra Plush toilet paper, Virginia Ultra Slims cigarettes or Michelob Ultra beer.

When Biden harked back to 1941 for "Lend-Lease," it's too bad he overlooked another term that was coined that year — the name the Brits gave to their highly effective code-breaking system: "Ultra."

No wonder Trump supporters welcomed the moniker "ultra-MAGA" and now wear it as a badge of honor.

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Connecticut, invites your language sightings. His new book, "Mark My Words," is available for $9.99 on Amazon.com. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via email to [email protected] or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.

Photo credit: blende12 at Pixabay