I’m not sure when it started: maybe the ’70s, maybe the ’80s. I do remember objecting the first time a broadcast television program promised me an “all-new episode!” In a matter of weeks this ridiculous phrase had spread like the measles to spot the other networks (all three of them; ah, the bad old days). Now no premiering episode is ever dissed as being anything less than all-new. Simple new simply won’t do anymore, has been completely cheapened and corrupted.
Of course it’s all-new, if it’s indeed new at all. There is no such thing as a partly new episode, I argued. I perceived no difference between a new episode and an all-new episode, putting this monstrosity in the Department of Redundancy Department category of nonsense.
As it turns out, I was wrong. There is indeed such a thing as a partly new episode in the universe of network television programs.
Successful shows that enjoy a long life, several seasons or several years, occasionally run out of steam. Ideas dry up, the pile of scripts dwindles to a few dogs, the actors want some time off. One solution is to create a portmanteau or retrospective episode, wherein the characters review past events. The (usually very thin) story line generally involves as few of the cast as possible and intersperses a minute or two of acting/dialogue with clips from previous episodes. Voilà, a partly new episode.
I have conceded that all-new is not necessarily redundant in this context. However, I still have a beef, because these partly new episodes are advertised as all-new. No fair, guys! We demand truth in advertising! Portmanteau shows should be labeled as such, to save us all the trouble of watching or recording cobbled-together tidbits from earlier shows. Don’t promise us steak and serve hot dogs. You don’t have to admit it’s only partly new. But you must omit all and describe it accurately as simply a new episode, or the Nitpickers’ Guild will be on your case.
As an aside, let me point out that all-new must be hyphenated whether it precedes or follows the noun. In this phrase, all is being used adverbially; compare with the obvious adverb partly in partly new. The rule is that adverbs that end in -ly are never hyphenated to the adjectives they modify, because their grammatical function is clear, but those that do not end in -ly usually should be hyphenated to prevent misreading. Here, all must be hyphenated so that it won’t be read as either a collective noun (I gave it my all) or as an adjective (we danced all night): All of this is new = This is all new (noun, no hyphen), versus This thing is entirely new = This is all-new. I don’t believe I have ever seen all-new with a hyphen on my TV screen. This does not surprise me.
This is article 6 in a continuing series. © 2009 Christine C. Janson
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advertising. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Big Little Problem
Words expressing size or quality are always relative. How big is big? How ripe is ripe? How quiet is quiet? In determining the applicability of any descriptive term, we must rely on ranges and averages as much as definitions. Room temperature might range from about 30 to about 90 degrees depending on the kind of room (tent? stone? wattle and daub?), the location (desert? rain forest?), and the season (summer? winter? monsoon?). Current standards of heating and cooling might allow us to define average room temperature as 70 degrees, but 200 years ago it was probably closer to 55 degrees, making the maxim that wine should be served at room temperature a conundrum.
So there is leeway in defining terms that express size or quality, and we acknowledge the absurdity of juxtapositions such as jumbo shrimp. But lately I have been noticing absurdities created by an apparent unwillingness to pick just one term.
I recently purchased onions at the supermarket. Putting them away at home, I paused to read the sticker that carried the PLU code and discovered that I had purchased “Large medium yellow onions.” Huh? Are they large, or are they medium? I will not consider the possibility that medium is referring to the shade of yellow. For one thing, there’s no hyphen. Surely the growers of all people ought to be able to establish sensible standards, whether by size or weight, diameter or ounces. Most disturbing, however, was that this sticker was attached to onions that I had chosen as being on the small side, i.e., smaller than average, i.e., neither large nor medium. The bin was labeled “Loose onions,” but my receipt had “Onions yellow sm.” Ah hah!
Is the size classification of yellow onions so exact that we need a subcategory poised between large and medium? I doubt it, especially when the produce in question didn’t belong in either category. If “large medium” is being applied to smaller-than-average specimens, can we look forward to buying onions classified as jumbo, colossal, and gigantic? I fear this is some kind of marketing ploy, although the purpose escapes me.
A second absurdity came from a different sort of aberrant thought process. A television ad for a fast-food place (let’s not dignify it as a restaurant) ballyhooed their sundaes, served with “warm hot fudge.” Huh? Is it warm, or is it hot? Actually, I think I have a handle on this one. The person who committed this was seeing hot fudge as a unit, the specific name of a specific thing, a fudgy sauce, its temperature irrelevant. Either the eatery didn’t plan to keep the stuff really hot (I don’t eat at such places partly because the food is never hot enough to please me), or the writer knew from experience that fudge sauce cools off very quickly once in contact with ice cream. Either way, he didn’t want to misrepresent the dish that customers would receive, and so he opted for warm, apparently not caring that the result was absurd, joined in that indifference by the corporate types who okayed this inane language.
As long as it’s heated above room temperature (vide supra), it’s hot fudge sauce. If you don’t heat it at all, it’s simply fudge sauce, and it won’t be a nice contrast for your ice cream. Likewise, if it’s bigger than medium, it’s large; and if it’s smaller than large, it’s medium. Just pick one, you vacillating (oxy)morons!
This is article 5 in a continuing series. © 2009 Christine C. Janson
So there is leeway in defining terms that express size or quality, and we acknowledge the absurdity of juxtapositions such as jumbo shrimp. But lately I have been noticing absurdities created by an apparent unwillingness to pick just one term.
I recently purchased onions at the supermarket. Putting them away at home, I paused to read the sticker that carried the PLU code and discovered that I had purchased “Large medium yellow onions.” Huh? Are they large, or are they medium? I will not consider the possibility that medium is referring to the shade of yellow. For one thing, there’s no hyphen. Surely the growers of all people ought to be able to establish sensible standards, whether by size or weight, diameter or ounces. Most disturbing, however, was that this sticker was attached to onions that I had chosen as being on the small side, i.e., smaller than average, i.e., neither large nor medium. The bin was labeled “Loose onions,” but my receipt had “Onions yellow sm.” Ah hah!
Is the size classification of yellow onions so exact that we need a subcategory poised between large and medium? I doubt it, especially when the produce in question didn’t belong in either category. If “large medium” is being applied to smaller-than-average specimens, can we look forward to buying onions classified as jumbo, colossal, and gigantic? I fear this is some kind of marketing ploy, although the purpose escapes me.
A second absurdity came from a different sort of aberrant thought process. A television ad for a fast-food place (let’s not dignify it as a restaurant) ballyhooed their sundaes, served with “warm hot fudge.” Huh? Is it warm, or is it hot? Actually, I think I have a handle on this one. The person who committed this was seeing hot fudge as a unit, the specific name of a specific thing, a fudgy sauce, its temperature irrelevant. Either the eatery didn’t plan to keep the stuff really hot (I don’t eat at such places partly because the food is never hot enough to please me), or the writer knew from experience that fudge sauce cools off very quickly once in contact with ice cream. Either way, he didn’t want to misrepresent the dish that customers would receive, and so he opted for warm, apparently not caring that the result was absurd, joined in that indifference by the corporate types who okayed this inane language.
As long as it’s heated above room temperature (vide supra), it’s hot fudge sauce. If you don’t heat it at all, it’s simply fudge sauce, and it won’t be a nice contrast for your ice cream. Likewise, if it’s bigger than medium, it’s large; and if it’s smaller than large, it’s medium. Just pick one, you vacillating (oxy)morons!
P.S. Okay, there is now (six months later) a red onion labeled Jumbo sitting in my onion basket. There were no "Small" or "Medium" red onions to compare it with. It is a good size, but not big enough to justify the hyperbole of jumbo versus simple large for something that tends to be on the big side anyway. The price was a bit more than usual. These are disturbing omens.
This is article 5 in a continuing series. © 2009 Christine C. Janson
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Eat Here, We Have Heavy-Metal Windows!
The errors that occur in published material extend well beyond spelling and punctuation, although those are the most common. The fact that a firm or business hires professionals to create its ads or news releases or whatever is no guarantee that the result will be error-free and effective.
A fine example of PR myopia and carelessness appeared in a recent issue of a tabloid-sized advertising publication called The Merchandiser. Under the banner head “Featured Restaurant” appears a half-page ad for a newly opened place in downtown Frederick, Md. There is a four-color photograph of an unidentifiable food construct (it might be caviar atop a slice of cheddar cheese atop a very thin cracker) balanced on the back of a spoon. Beneath that are six short paragraphs in a very readable sans serif typeface, followed by the hours of operation, address, phone number, and website. Despite the oddity of the food image, the ad gives a good impression—until you read it.
Let’s start with two ludicrous errors in word choice, both in the homophone category. In paragraph three we are told that the restaurant’s Main Dining Room (their capitals) is “awash in a palate of amber and burnt rose.” Burnt anything offends my palate; the confusion of palate with palette offends my sensibilities. Then, in paragraph five, we learn that there is a “vintage palladium window overlooking Market Street.” When did they begin making windows out of a metal related to platinum? Such a window would weigh a ton and cost a fortune and not be at all transparent. A Palladian window, on the other hand, would look very handsome. To make matters worse, the sentence in which this imbecility appears is a grammatical mess.
Who made these errors? Who wrote this copy? I can only speculate and deduce. I was told by someone associated with the restaurant that they work with a PR firm. Perhaps there was a meeting at which the client requested that the ad mention the colors of the main dining room; the client may even have specified that the palette was amber and burnt rose, and the error here is entirely the copywriter’s. If the client prepared the copy and actually had the word palate written down, the PR firm should have caught the error; that is part of their job. Regardless of whether they made the error or failed to catch it, this howler is a blot on their reputation.
The confusion between palladium and Palladian is on another level entirely. I can envision several possible scenarios, all of which involve Spellcheck. It’s a certainty that the client knew what a Palladian window is, and the fault here belongs solely to the PR firm. Perhaps the client wrote Palladian but misspelled it; perhaps the copywriter mistyped it into the computer; or perhaps the client said Palladian and the copywriter heard it wrong or wrote the unfamiliar word down phonetically. My Spellcheck program offers both Palladian and palladium as alternatives for a likely misspelling, and I see the copywriter picking one without bothering to look it up even though he obviously didn’t know the meaning of either. For shame! May the shade of Andrea Palladio haunt you! (If he did know the meaning and used palladium anyway, his ignorance extends well beyond language.)
Now we come to the biggest problem with this ad. It has nothing to do with grammar, word choice, or punctuation, but it is something a good editor would have queried. The six paragraphs of text in this half-page ad for a restaurant tell us a great deal about the nineteenth-century brownstone that houses it, the décor and ambience of its various rooms, and its location in Frederick’s historic district. Oddly, only half a sentence mentions the food served in this marvelous edifice, and that only vaguely. To quote every word of it, we can look forward to “seasonal entrées” that “showcase classic flavor combinations prepared with fresh, local ingredients.”
So what kind of cuisine does this restaurant offer? New American? Classic French? Thai? The restaurant’s name, a shortening of the executive chef’s last name, isn’t much of a clue. His name is Italian; do we assume the cuisine is Italian? Turns out the place espouses a food philosophy called locavorism—that’s vor as in omnivore and loca as in local, not as in crazy. Call me crazy, but I believe most people debating where to go for dinner don’t choose a place because the architecture is exceptional. Some might be moved to try this one simply because it’s new and sounds elegant. But most people decide where to eat based on the kind of food that might be offered, and they have been given no useful information. This fundamental oversight is a fatal flaw.
This PR firm has produced an ad that doesn’t tell us the most important thing about the business being advertised and uses an unappetizing image to boot. (“What is that? Caviar on cheddar? Yecch!”) The promise of seasonal entrées, classic flavor combinations, and fresh ingredients is not very enticing. You expect that much from any fine restaurant. Good advertising sells the sizzle. This ad isn’t even selling the steak. It’s telling us all about the walls. Is the cuisine less appealing than the décor? Isn't the locavorism philosophy worth one paragraph out of six?
The client’s advertising budget has been ill-spent on an ad that contains not one but two laughable errors and will not entice nearly as many people as a well-conceived, well-written, and well-imaged one would have done. If this were my business, I’d probably be looking for a new PR firm. I would also make a point of proofreading all copy before giving it my approval to avoid embarrassment in the future.
This is article 4 in a continuing series. © 2009 Christine C. Janson
A fine example of PR myopia and carelessness appeared in a recent issue of a tabloid-sized advertising publication called The Merchandiser. Under the banner head “Featured Restaurant” appears a half-page ad for a newly opened place in downtown Frederick, Md. There is a four-color photograph of an unidentifiable food construct (it might be caviar atop a slice of cheddar cheese atop a very thin cracker) balanced on the back of a spoon. Beneath that are six short paragraphs in a very readable sans serif typeface, followed by the hours of operation, address, phone number, and website. Despite the oddity of the food image, the ad gives a good impression—until you read it.
Let’s start with two ludicrous errors in word choice, both in the homophone category. In paragraph three we are told that the restaurant’s Main Dining Room (their capitals) is “awash in a palate of amber and burnt rose.” Burnt anything offends my palate; the confusion of palate with palette offends my sensibilities. Then, in paragraph five, we learn that there is a “vintage palladium window overlooking Market Street.” When did they begin making windows out of a metal related to platinum? Such a window would weigh a ton and cost a fortune and not be at all transparent. A Palladian window, on the other hand, would look very handsome. To make matters worse, the sentence in which this imbecility appears is a grammatical mess.
Who made these errors? Who wrote this copy? I can only speculate and deduce. I was told by someone associated with the restaurant that they work with a PR firm. Perhaps there was a meeting at which the client requested that the ad mention the colors of the main dining room; the client may even have specified that the palette was amber and burnt rose, and the error here is entirely the copywriter’s. If the client prepared the copy and actually had the word palate written down, the PR firm should have caught the error; that is part of their job. Regardless of whether they made the error or failed to catch it, this howler is a blot on their reputation.
The confusion between palladium and Palladian is on another level entirely. I can envision several possible scenarios, all of which involve Spellcheck. It’s a certainty that the client knew what a Palladian window is, and the fault here belongs solely to the PR firm. Perhaps the client wrote Palladian but misspelled it; perhaps the copywriter mistyped it into the computer; or perhaps the client said Palladian and the copywriter heard it wrong or wrote the unfamiliar word down phonetically. My Spellcheck program offers both Palladian and palladium as alternatives for a likely misspelling, and I see the copywriter picking one without bothering to look it up even though he obviously didn’t know the meaning of either. For shame! May the shade of Andrea Palladio haunt you! (If he did know the meaning and used palladium anyway, his ignorance extends well beyond language.)
Now we come to the biggest problem with this ad. It has nothing to do with grammar, word choice, or punctuation, but it is something a good editor would have queried. The six paragraphs of text in this half-page ad for a restaurant tell us a great deal about the nineteenth-century brownstone that houses it, the décor and ambience of its various rooms, and its location in Frederick’s historic district. Oddly, only half a sentence mentions the food served in this marvelous edifice, and that only vaguely. To quote every word of it, we can look forward to “seasonal entrées” that “showcase classic flavor combinations prepared with fresh, local ingredients.”
So what kind of cuisine does this restaurant offer? New American? Classic French? Thai? The restaurant’s name, a shortening of the executive chef’s last name, isn’t much of a clue. His name is Italian; do we assume the cuisine is Italian? Turns out the place espouses a food philosophy called locavorism—that’s vor as in omnivore and loca as in local, not as in crazy. Call me crazy, but I believe most people debating where to go for dinner don’t choose a place because the architecture is exceptional. Some might be moved to try this one simply because it’s new and sounds elegant. But most people decide where to eat based on the kind of food that might be offered, and they have been given no useful information. This fundamental oversight is a fatal flaw.
This PR firm has produced an ad that doesn’t tell us the most important thing about the business being advertised and uses an unappetizing image to boot. (“What is that? Caviar on cheddar? Yecch!”) The promise of seasonal entrées, classic flavor combinations, and fresh ingredients is not very enticing. You expect that much from any fine restaurant. Good advertising sells the sizzle. This ad isn’t even selling the steak. It’s telling us all about the walls. Is the cuisine less appealing than the décor? Isn't the locavorism philosophy worth one paragraph out of six?
The client’s advertising budget has been ill-spent on an ad that contains not one but two laughable errors and will not entice nearly as many people as a well-conceived, well-written, and well-imaged one would have done. If this were my business, I’d probably be looking for a new PR firm. I would also make a point of proofreading all copy before giving it my approval to avoid embarrassment in the future.
This is article 4 in a continuing series. © 2009 Christine C. Janson
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