Glossary entry (derived from question below)
English term or phrase:
make a coupon sing in Spanish
English answer:
make a coupon offer sound great in Spanish
Added to glossary by
Jenni Lukac (X)
Jul 25, 2012 12:06
11 yrs ago
1 viewer *
English term
United Kingdom
The word is my oyster
Native in: Greek 
Works in: English to Greek, Greek to English, Greek
make a coupon sing in Spanish
English
Art/Literary
Slang
Hi, all. A friend is doing the Greek subtitles for one of the Mad Men episodes (first season, Shoot). In this bit of dialogue Roger is trying to explain to Don the realities of a Pan Am account:
"You hear Pan Am, you imagine London, holed up at the Dorchester with three stewardesses. The truth is it's more like a 20-hour boomerang flight so you can make a coupon sing in Spanish."
I suppose a boomerang flight is a return flight, but we are stumped by the rest of the sentence. Is anyone familiar with what he's trying to say here or should we contact the writers? Thanks in advance (and a joy to be back in this pair, even for just this one question).
"You hear Pan Am, you imagine London, holed up at the Dorchester with three stewardesses. The truth is it's more like a 20-hour boomerang flight so you can make a coupon sing in Spanish."
I suppose a boomerang flight is a return flight, but we are stumped by the rest of the sentence. Is anyone familiar with what he's trying to say here or should we contact the writers? Thanks in advance (and a joy to be back in this pair, even for just this one question).
Responses
| 4 | make a coupon offer sound great in Spanish |
Jenni Lukac (X)
|
| 4 | come up with an outlandish and pointless gimmick |
Charles Davis
|
Change log
Jul 27, 2012 05:08: Jenni Lukac (X) Created KOG entry
Responses
49 mins
Selected
make a coupon offer sound great in Spanish
Based on: Roger tells Don the reality of Hobart dangling the Pan Am account in his face. http://www.hark.com/mad-men/so-you-can-make-a-coupon-sing-in...
Note from asker:
| Thanks, Jenni. We have decided this is closest to how Roger expresses himself and that he probably means to say that what one would have to do on a trip to Europe is to make offers like coupons attractive to Spaniards (and other Europeans, perhaps) -- nothing as attractive as the Dorchester fantasy. |
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
2 hrs
come up with an outlandish and pointless gimmick
I don't know Mad Men, but I've got a general idea of the context with the help of this page:
http://www.luon.com/blog/2011/4/27/mad-men-today-does-size-r...
Don works for Roger's small advertising agency, Sterling Cooper. Hobart has been trying to persuade Don to leave and join the much larger agency McCann, whose clients include Pan Am. In this scene Roger is trying to persuade Don to stay with Sterling Cooper and not go to McCann. So here he's saying that having a client like Pan Am sounds great but in fact it would be unrewarding for a creative guy like Don. You imagine it would be really glamorous and luxurious, flying off to London and staying at the Dorchester Hotel with three stewardesses. But in fact this imaginary trip to London to work on the Pan Am account would involve an exhausting 20-hour "boomerang flight", a round trip there and back with only a short time in London, and all for the sake of "making a coupon sing in Spanish".
I don't think there's any actual secondary meaning in the words; it's just a colourful and outlandish, over-the-top way of saying that what you'd be doing for Pan Am is some really elaborate but pointless, useless and unimaginative piece of marketing, like developing a singing flight coupon; not only that, but one that sings in Spanish. I think it's designed as a way of ridiculing the kind of work Roger wishes Don to think he'd be doing at McCann for a client like Pan Am.
"Coupon" in this context, referring to Pan Am, must surely mean a flight coupon, as a paper flight ticket is often called in America. Pan Am has flight coupons, like other airlines, so we imagine Don developing a singing flight coupon: an ludicrous gimmick. The final touch, "in Spanish", tips it over into complete parody: not just singing, which would be too ordinary, but singing in Spanish.
By the way, the French subtitles interpret "coupon" as "ticket", but don't tackle "sing" at all:
"En vérité, c' est plutôt 20 heures de vol chaotique pour fabriquer des tickets en espagnol"
http://fr.glosbe.com/fr/en/chaotiques
As an afterthought, it's just possible there's a double meaning in there too, since "make it sing" is used in the advertising and design world to mean make it really impressive:
http://www.google.es/search?num=100&hl=es&q="make it sing" "...
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Note added at 5 hrs (2012-07-25 18:00:37 GMT)
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If you do contact the writers I'd be very interested to know what they say.
Meanwhile, this kind of reading makes more and more sense to me. A singing coupon or air ticket is no doubt technically feasible, and an advertising executive with loads of money and no taste or intelligence might think it would be cool. It could sing your flight details, with a Pan Am jingle (handy if you forget who you're flying with!), so you wouldn't have to read it. And in Spanish; great for attracting that huge US hispanic market. You could even give it a bit of salsa rhythm: Latin music is very big...
It's daft, of course, and meant to be. I think it's Roger indulging his robust and colourful linguistic invention with a bit of over-the-top parody, and putting over the message that McCann is like that: expensive, self-indulgent but ludicrously tasteless campaigns that would drive a smart, talented guy like Don crazy.
http://www.luon.com/blog/2011/4/27/mad-men-today-does-size-r...
Don works for Roger's small advertising agency, Sterling Cooper. Hobart has been trying to persuade Don to leave and join the much larger agency McCann, whose clients include Pan Am. In this scene Roger is trying to persuade Don to stay with Sterling Cooper and not go to McCann. So here he's saying that having a client like Pan Am sounds great but in fact it would be unrewarding for a creative guy like Don. You imagine it would be really glamorous and luxurious, flying off to London and staying at the Dorchester Hotel with three stewardesses. But in fact this imaginary trip to London to work on the Pan Am account would involve an exhausting 20-hour "boomerang flight", a round trip there and back with only a short time in London, and all for the sake of "making a coupon sing in Spanish".
I don't think there's any actual secondary meaning in the words; it's just a colourful and outlandish, over-the-top way of saying that what you'd be doing for Pan Am is some really elaborate but pointless, useless and unimaginative piece of marketing, like developing a singing flight coupon; not only that, but one that sings in Spanish. I think it's designed as a way of ridiculing the kind of work Roger wishes Don to think he'd be doing at McCann for a client like Pan Am.
"Coupon" in this context, referring to Pan Am, must surely mean a flight coupon, as a paper flight ticket is often called in America. Pan Am has flight coupons, like other airlines, so we imagine Don developing a singing flight coupon: an ludicrous gimmick. The final touch, "in Spanish", tips it over into complete parody: not just singing, which would be too ordinary, but singing in Spanish.
By the way, the French subtitles interpret "coupon" as "ticket", but don't tackle "sing" at all:
"En vérité, c' est plutôt 20 heures de vol chaotique pour fabriquer des tickets en espagnol"
http://fr.glosbe.com/fr/en/chaotiques
As an afterthought, it's just possible there's a double meaning in there too, since "make it sing" is used in the advertising and design world to mean make it really impressive:
http://www.google.es/search?num=100&hl=es&q="make it sing" "...
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 5 hrs (2012-07-25 18:00:37 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
If you do contact the writers I'd be very interested to know what they say.
Meanwhile, this kind of reading makes more and more sense to me. A singing coupon or air ticket is no doubt technically feasible, and an advertising executive with loads of money and no taste or intelligence might think it would be cool. It could sing your flight details, with a Pan Am jingle (handy if you forget who you're flying with!), so you wouldn't have to read it. And in Spanish; great for attracting that huge US hispanic market. You could even give it a bit of salsa rhythm: Latin music is very big...
It's daft, of course, and meant to be. I think it's Roger indulging his robust and colourful linguistic invention with a bit of over-the-top parody, and putting over the message that McCann is like that: expensive, self-indulgent but ludicrously tasteless campaigns that would drive a smart, talented guy like Don crazy.
Discussion
Hi, Jenni. I was able to listen to a video snippet and it sounded the same.
I sort of wondered if perhasp Roger is soemthing to do with making adverts, and he had to make this ultra-fast return trip just to show someone how to make a (money off?) coupon 'sing' — perhaps an animation effect?