Do You Make These Mistakes In English?
Annotation Spotlight · Kanban Board
'Do You Make These Mistakes in English?' ran as a Sherwin Cody School ad from 1919 to 1959 — 40 consecutive years. It's cited in every major copywriting book as the definitive example of a self-qualifying hook that targets shame without accusation.
Copy Nerd Notes
Copy Intelligence
The pattern, logic, and stealable move inside this piece of copy.
Pattern Identified
Research insight: Sherwin Cody's team discovered that grammar anxiety was universal among educated Americans — people who knew they made errors but couldn't identify them. The word 'these' implies specific, identifiable mistakes the reader is probably making right now, triggering self-consciousness. This ad ran continuously for 40 years, suggesting the underlying anxiety never faded.
Steal This
Copy technique: The question format engages the reader's ego — they can't help but mentally answer 'Do I?' The word 'these' does enormous work: it presupposes specific mistakes exist and the ad knows what they are. 'In English' feels redundant but is strategic — it grounds the question in everyday speech, not academic writing, making it personal. Maxwell Sackheim wrote this for the Sherwin Cody School; it's one of the longest-running ads in history because the hook mechanism (productive self-doubt) is evergreen.