Words That Work by Frank Luntz — book cover

Words That Work

Frank Luntz · 2007

Words That Work (2007) is a book by Frank Luntz on communication & influence. Republican pollster Frank Luntz distills decades of focus-group testing into a practical language playbook, arguing that persuasion lives not in what you say but in what your audience actually hears and feels.

11 min read · 8 chapters · Communication

Why it’s on the shelf

The pollster who rebranded "estate tax" as "death tax" reveals the exact word choices that move public opinion, and why what people hear always beats what you meant to say.

Two of the ideas you’ll keep

The Clif summary of Words That Work pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first two.

  1. Luntz's central axiom is that communication is measured by reception, not intention: **it's not what you say, it's what people hear**. Two people can hear the identical sentence and walk away with opposite meanings, so you must test your words against the listener, not your own logic.
  2. His Ten Rules of Successful Communication start with **Simplicity** (use small words) and **Brevity** (use short sentences), because the fewer syllables and the shorter the phrase, the more likely a message is understood and remembered.

The other 5 — and the full 11-minute summary — are in the app.

What’s inside: 8 chapters

The whole summary runs about 11 minutes, read or listened to.

  1. It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear
  2. The Ten Rules of Successful Communication
  3. Old Words, New Meaning
  4. Be the Message: Words That Define a Person
  5. What We REALLY Care About
  6. Corporate Case Studies
  7. Myths and Realities About Language and People
  8. The 21 Words and Phrases for the 21st Century

Finish Words That Work tonight.

Read or listen to the full summary in about 11 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.

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