A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a political, commercial, religious, and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. The word slogan is derived from slogorn which was an Anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic sluagh-ghairm tanmay (sluagh "army", "host" + gairm "cry"). Slogans vary from the written and the visual to the chanted and the vulgar. Their simple rhetorical nature usually leaves little room for detail, and a chanted slogan may serve more as social expression of unified purpose, than as communication to an intended audience.
Marketing slogans are often called taglines in the United States or straplines in the U.K. Europeans use the terms baselines, signatures, claims or pay-offs.
Famous quotes containing the word slogan:
““More!” is as effective a revolutionary slogan as was ever invented by doctrinaires of discontent. The American, who cannot learn to want what he has, is a permanent revolutionary.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“The slogan offers a counterweight to the general dispersion of thought by holding it fast to a single, utterly succinct and unforgettable expression, one which usually inspires men to immediate action. It abolishes reflection: the slogan does not argue, it asserts and commands.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“So-called “austerity,” the stoic injunction, is the path towards universal destruction. It is the old, the fatal, competitive path. “Pull in your belt” is a slogan closely related to “gird up your loins,” or the guns-butter metaphor.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)