A while back, we wrote a post called “Breaking with the past …” in which we explored some rules for and exceptions to forming the past tense, especially with the “… ink” words.
Last night, we saw a TV commercial … for SLIMQUICK™ … that riled us up again.
Here’s the quote from the not-so-slim cartoon woman on the TV ad … she says to/about her slimming male counterpart:
“We’re trying to lose weight, so we cut out junk food. I shrunk one size. He shrunk six sizes.”
Goodness! This is slim (actually, grim) grammar. Come on, the past tense of shrink is shrank …
Just to make sure we heard correctly, we replayed the spot several times, in disbelief. Why are we always so shocked at advertising grammar goofs? (click here to see another example) After all, an advertising great (copywriter for such brands as Hanes, Walmart, Discover, and eTrade) once wrote to us, and we quote, “… honestly, grammar doesn’t mean much in advertising.” Still, it ruffles our feathers when we hear companies allow such blatant English language slaughter on the TV airwaves (and cable). Maybe our consolation must be that if there are not these gaffes, we wouldn’t have much to blog about?
Your thoughts?
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