British English has many words that make sales talk sound suspect.
Patter: A salesperson’s practiced, rapid talk.
Spiel: A sales speech that sounds rehearsed.
Flannel: Flattering talk that avoids the point.
The gift of the gab: The ability to talk easily and persuasively, not always a compliment.
A used-car salesman: Someone who seems pushy and untrustworthy.
To oversell: To claim more than something deserves, which makes people doubt it.
The Telephone Preference Service is the United Kingdom’s register for people who do not want sales calls. Households have been able to join since May 1999. The list has legal force under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. Organizations may not make unsolicited sales calls to a registered number.
Many British streets are No Cold Calling Zones. Suffolk Trading Standards defines one as “a nominated area where residents state they do not want traders to cold call at their homes.” The residents are consulted, and the street receives signs and door stickers.
Suffolk launched its first zone in Ipswich in 2009. By August 2023, it had 200.
Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, a consumer who buys at the door or away from a trader’s premises may cancel “without giving any reason.” For a service, the cancellation period ends “14 days after the day on which the contract is entered into.”
For well over a decade, British lenders sold payment protection insurance with loans. Sales were often driven by large commissions and by telesales teams. According to the UK government, the insurance was mis-sold on an industrial scale.
Customers could complain until 29 August 2019. By December 2019, the Financial Conduct Authority reported that firms had paid out £38.3 billion since January 2011.
In the ITV comedy drama Minder, broadcast from 1979 to 1994, George Cole played Arthur Daley, a used car salesman and wheeler-dealer. He survives by his wiles and exploits everyone around him. He often describes a scheme to make extra money as “a nice little earner.”
In 1973, Ridley Scott directed an advertisement for Hovis bread. A boy pushes a bicycle loaded with bread up a cobbled street in Shaftesbury, Dorset. A voice looks back on the journey, while a colliery brass band plays music by Dvořák.
In 2006, it was voted the nation’s favorite advertisement of all time. A 2018 YouGov poll named it the best advertisement of the 1970s.
British English has many words that make eagerness sound slightly suspect.
Keen: Eager. “He’s very keen” can be a gentle warning.
Trying too hard: Making an effort that others can see, and that therefore fails.
A bit much: Too enthusiastic, too friendly or too loud for the situation.
Full-on: Intense in a way that tires other people.
Smarmy: Friendly or flattering in an insincere way.
Salesy: Sounding like someone who is trying to sell something.
In 1973, Tony Bodinetz at the agency KMP wrote a slogan for Carlsberg lager in the British market: “Probably the best lager in the world.” The brand used it in its advertising for almost four decades, until it was replaced in most regions in 2011.