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The writer talks about some funny word unknown to reader yet.

From "New Ad Land Cartoon: The Most Important Word in Advertising":

David’s new Ad Land cartoon honors and celebrates the MVP word in advertising’s lexicon, but we’re not going to give it away in this intro. You’re going to have jump for it. Trust us, it’s worth it.

I guess that the possible meaning is: The reader will jump (like "jump for joy" idiom) when he knows the funny word at last.

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  • Is it a phrase you came up with, or something that you found somewhere? I'm on the fence about turning my comment into an answer, because it seems somewhat subjective to me. Mar 21, 2019 at 12:59
  • You can see the full story - Ad Land cartoon at the link above Mar 22, 2019 at 7:14

2 Answers 2

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The jump is the internet’s term for the break in a web page’s main content for advertising. Some web content is written to be aware of these ad insertions and some are not. Advertising in this manner is a two-edged sword because while it tries to guarantee more views it also is a point where lots of people “give up” and move on not wanting to scroll past to get to the rest of the story after the “jump”. This story was written to acknowledge the jump and tried to use it to build suspense. But ironically, no advertising seems to be inserted between the intro paragraph and “the punchline”.

From Wiktionary:

after_the_jump
The World Wide Web version of “after the break.”

Used to introduce an inline advertisement in a webpage etc.
This story continues after the jump.

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  • +1 Since the context is an inside joke for web advertising professionals, this jargony meaning seems the most likely
    – user662852
    Mar 22, 2019 at 14:38
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It's unlikely that the interpretation is jump for joy.

First of all, it would be unidiomatic to say you are going to have to jump for joy. If jump for joy had been intended, the construction of the phrase would more likely have been:

You will jump (for joy) after reading it.

But just you will jump after reading it would have sounded strange.


It's much more likely that jump for it means:

You're going to have to work for it.

A different idiom that actually works with this sentence construction is jump through hoops:

You're going to have to jump through hoops for it.

In other words, they are not just going to give it away—it's not within easy reach. They won't simply say what this new word is; instead, in the article, you're going to have to figure it out yourself from the cartoon that follows.


Note that figuring it out is not at all difficult. The cartoon that follows clearly says it up front. That kind of defeats the build up of saying it requires any work on your part to discover. It would be similar to somebody saying, "I'm thinking of a number but I'm not going to tell you what it is. You're going to have to guess." But, at the same time, holding up a sign that reads "The answer is 42." It's an attempt at humour that doesn't quite work.

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