Winston tastes good like a cigarette should

[jeffer...@example.invalid]

Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.
Or
Should it read "Winston tastes good as a cigarette should."

This TV and Radio commercial slogan was a big controversy in the 1950's
and 60's saying the slogan as grammatically incorrect.

By 1970 and 1971, Winston sought to revamp its image and chose to
respond to many grammarians' qualms with the slogan, "What do you want,
good grammar or good taste?"

It's funny how I remember the original slogan even though I was just a
child in the 1950s. When they came out with the "good grammar or good
taste" commercial, I never unerstood it's meaning. I had heard " like a
cigarette should" so many times over the years that I never considered
it to be poor grammar.

Recently I ran across the whole story about this slogan issue and I
finally understand what all the controversy was about.

However, I still think "like a cigarette should", sounds just fine to
me...... but I wonder how many times I hard that slogan over the years,
and it became "normal speech".

Read the whole article here, and I have to admit, it took me down memory
lane, and it was fun reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_tastes_good_like_a_cigarette_should



[QUOTE] (part of article)

During the campaign's long run in the media, many criticized the slogan
as grammatically incorrect and that it should say, "Winston tastes good
as a cigarette should." Ogden Nash, in The New Yorker, published a poem
that ran "Like goes Madison Avenue, like so goes the nation."[10] Walter
Cronkite, then hosting The Morning Show, refused to say the line as
written, and an announcer was used instead.[11]

Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point, says that this "ungrammatical
and somehow provocative use of 'like' instead of 'as' created a minor
sensation" in 1954 and implies that the phrase itself was responsible
for vaulting the brand to second place in the U.S. market.[12] Winston
overtook Pall Mall cigarettes as the #1 cigarette in the United States
in 1966, while the advertising campaign continued to make an impression
on the mass media.

In the fall of 1961, a small furor enveloped the literary and
journalistic communities in the United States when Merriam-Webster
published its Third New International Dictionary. In the dictionary, the
editors refused to condemn the use of "like" as a conjunction, and cited
"Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" as an example of popular
colloquial use. After publication of Webster's Third, The New York Times
called the edition "bolshevik," and the Chicago Daily News wrote that
the transgression signified "a general decay in values."[13]

When the players in The Beverly Hillbillies spoke the line, they
stretched the grammatical boundaries further:

Jed: Winston tastes good...
Granny: Like a cigarette had ought-a!

In 1970 and 1971, Winston sought to revamp its image and chose to
respond to many grammarians' qualms with the slogan, "What do you want,
good grammar or good taste?" Mad magazine published a parody of this on
the back cover of its January 1971 issue; set in a cemetery, it featured
four tombstones with epitaphs written in the past tense ("Winston tasted
good like a cigarette should've" "You mean 'as a cigarette should've'"
"What did you want, good grammar or good taste?" "I wanted to live a lot
longer than this!"). With the new slogan in wide use, "Winston tastes
good like a cigarette should" was retired permanently in 1972.

In 1981, actor James Garner claimed responsibility for the wording of
the slogan during an interview with Playboy magazine. Garner, who
narrated the original commercial, stated that his first action ever to
be captured on film was to misread the line that had been provided to
him.[14] However, as noted above, the advertisements first appeared in
print before their debut on television, which cast doubt on Garner's
claim.

[END QUOTE]