Is it just us or has there been an increase in grammatical misuse in tag lines, advertisements, and TV commercials lately? As many of you know, we have been feuding with Hanes for a few years over their “lay-flat” collar ads – to no avail.
Looks like we have a couple of new opponents to take on:
StriVectin
“MORE SCIENCE. LESS WRINKLES.” & “More science. Less eye lines.”
FORD
“MORE GO. LESS STOPS.”
In addition, a faithful follower writes,
“Ugh! Have you seen the Mercedes commercial?! ”More technology, less doors.” I’m hoping it’s really clever and I just don’t understand it. Surely the grammar couldn’t be that bad, could it?”
We encourage you to look back to our posts on the subject “Less” vs. “Fewer”.
Would these grammar goofs affect your buying decisions?
Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, cigarette commercials were permitted on U.S. television… This feud with Hanes reminds me of the “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should” campaign and its follow-up, which proudly mocked grammarians who tried to get the company to correct “like” to “as.” [As we say in lolspeak, "My age, let me show you it." In retrospect, I suspect Winston was happy to tout that silly "controversy" in lieu of addressing its more deadly sins.]
Grammar causes are lost, however, not when Winston’s or Hanes’s adpeople cheerfully respond, “I’m going to do it anyway” as they all go down to Amster, Amster, dam, dam, dam.” [To make another reference which dates me;-] Of course, today’s grammar miscreants would respond, “I’m going to do it anywayS,” a misusage that sets my teeth on edge as painfully as fingernails on a chalkboard:-/ Rather, grammar causes are lost when the majority of even educated [or "educated"] people no longer have the faintest idea what we grammarians are going on about and furthermore, don’t see any reason to find out. [Yes, I am aware of that preposition at the end of that sentence, but that is something up with which I occasionally put.] Why, even my sainted paternal grandmother, a very prim English professor, PhD, said that Edwin Newman’s “hopefully” campaign was altogether too fussy! She felt that “hopefully” had not fallen into misuse, but risen to the occasion to serve a useful purpose. [Meanwhile, on the other side of my family, my maternal grandfather, with only an eighth grade, one-room schoolhouse education, was actually stricter, like Chris Rock's father. Woe betide any of his children who let fly an "ain't" or a "he don't" or an "I seen"!]
“Lie” vs. “Lay” and “Less” vs. “Fewer,” not to mention “Who” vs. “Whom,” seem to be going the way of the manual typewriter, the manufacture of which, alas, ceased just recently. I do what I can, with my little speeches about “To lie”=”to recline” and “to lay”= “to place” and partitive vs. numeric quantity. However, I am really more upset by that grating “anyways,” by pluralizing with apostrophes, by the pompously mistaken use of “and I” as objective case and the klutzy misuse of “myself” for everything BUT reflexive.
Amen!
I hate, hate, hate what seems to be a new trend in using “less” when “fewer” is called for. Did I mention I hate it?
I am in desperate need of grammatical help; I have a website called bassunleashed.com and I have no clue if I’m grammatically correct or not in most of my posts.