Diamonds are forever

This was the title of one of the James Bond novels written by Ian Fleming in 1956, subsequently made into a 1971 movie starring Sean Connery, in which Shirley Bassey sang the title song. Fleming, however, was merely putting De Beers’ famous advertising slogan, ‘A diamond is forever’ into the plural. The advertising slogan was coined in 1947 by a young copywriter, Frances Gerety, at N.W. Ayer & Sons, the Philadelphia advertising agency. The idea for the slogan may have come from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, published in 1925, where she wrote, “Kissing your hand may make you feel very, very good but a diamond and sapphire bracelet lasts forever.”