Mondegreen Moment

Eugenics ; the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population.” The idea of eugenics was behind many Nazi abuses, such as enforced "racial hygiene", human experimentation, and the extermination of "undesired" population groups.

This doesn’t sound too good to me!

So I was a little confused the other evening when I thought  I heard ‘eugenics’ being mentioned in an advert break on TV [I was busy casting off my cardi at the time, looking at the knitting needles and not at the screen] But it was another Mondegreen Moment.

What was actually said was “Anew Genics” – a new product from Avon cosmetics – which is, according to the blurb …

“A rich, luxurious cream formulated with exclusive YouthGen Technology to stimulate the Youth Gene, your longevity protein, and help minimise the signs of visible skin ageing, including wrinkles, dullness, age spots and loss of firmness”

Good grief! Do people believe all that? and at over £78 per 100ml, will they buy that? Does this stuff help minimise loss of firmness in the brain cells?

Personally, I find the easiest way to ‘minimise the signs of visible skin ageing, etc’ is just to take off my spectacles before I look in the mirror!

And now I have this horrid feeling that there is a team of creative people sitting round a table somewhere at Avon HQ who had a “Brainstorming” session, to find a name for their product, and thought that “Anew Genics” sounded awfully clever and scientific, so Jane Doe would be persuaded into purchasing it. But that those creative types are probably all aged under 40, and never did much history – and have no idea that the name sounds so similar to an evil Nazi Philosophy.