What is a copywriter, anyway?

I’ll admit it. I love it when people ask me what I do. The badly disguised inner head-scratching is priceless.

Tell people you’re a copywriter and a fair chunk of them regard you with vague reverence, assuming you must be some kind of Z-grade lawyer (it’s otherwise difficult to reconcile the trashed people mover my family rattles about in).

One admirably persistent inquirer really tried to back into this assumption. He insisted I?must?know a lot about copyright law, since I write websites and the like. Yeah, nah. The eighth commandment - the one about not stealing other people's stuff - has me pretty well covered.

My kids told all their teachers and friends my job is to literally copy stuff down. Like a Medieval monk. No wonder I never get asked to present at the kindergarten Career Day.

I sometimes tell people I write the internet. It’s largely true. Plus, I get to watch them pull faces redolent of someone who just heard you claim you’ve solved the energy crisis using the flatulence of keto devotees. (Patent pending).

This slightly avoidant response does hint at an insecurity around claiming a title associated with a career I’d longed for, but quite forgot to have. That is until I (accidentally) started a copywriting business.

I suppose I’ve always nursed a rather traditional view of who and what a copywriter is; someone a lot cooler than I, working in an advertising agency, casually churning out genius that gets printed in newspapers and magazines, pasted on billboards or aired alongside whatever roster of ‘entertainment’ is currently pushing the ad breaks apart.

When choosing a way to describe myself, I only really had two options – and we’ve already established?why I eschewed ‘Content Writer’. Copywriter, I decided, was a title I’d just have to grow into.

Of course, it’s not my own definition that matters. If I’m going to attempt to explain what a copywriter does, it may help to first define the ‘copy’ part.

What is copy?

‘Copy’ comes from the Anglo-French,?copie,?meaning 'a written account or record'. You can also trace it to the Medieval Latin,?copia,?meaning something closer to 'abundance' (think 'copious'). It was also commonly used to mean 'transcript' or 'reproduction'.

Smoosh all of that together and you get something like ‘writing intended to be spread about the place by making lots of copies’.

Makes sense. Especially in its earliest application, which was chiefly in the newsroom. Copy, as I originally came to think of it, was more specifically?advertising?copy, as opposed to news copy.

This is the chink in my armour where the doubt creeps in. What I write isn’t really advertising copy. Is it?

What is advertising?

Advertising, as it happens, was not always so narrowly defined.

Echoes of high school Latin inform me that?advertere?means ‘to turn toward’. Google advises that the Old French word?avertissement?stemmed from?avertir – to ‘turn’, ‘warn’ or ‘make aware’?(it gained the ‘d’ later in life).

Advertising, you could argue, is simply a communication intended to turn your head and hold your attention while it informs and persuades you to do something. Usually to the benefit of the advertisement’s sponsor.

This has taken many forms throughout history. It is said that prostitutes in ancient Greece tapped nails into their shoes in a pattern that left an imprint in that dust that read, “follow me”.

Even prior to this (around 3000 BC), the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes appears to have been home to the original Don Draper. A fabric weaver, named Hepu, put out a notice and reward for the recovery of a runaway slave, Shem. Hepu took the opportunity to request Shem be returned to “where the best cloth is woven to your desires”. Nicely played.

Today, you’d be hard pressed to find an agency that limits itself to producing what most of us think of as ads. Clients now demand all kinds of marketing bits and bobs – most of which require some form of words.

It’s not a stretch, therefore, to think of a copywriter simply as someone who writes in a compelling and persuasive way to help businesses and organisations achieve their objectives.

That’s a pair of shoes even I can manage to clomp around in without needing to stuff the toes with too much newspaper.

(I may still occasionally say the "I write the internet" thing. The novelty hasn’t quite worn off yet.)

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