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I Would Never Endorse Taster’s Choice

April 21, 2009

I was coming home from my show, a little tipsy, when I opened a magazine and saw this ad:

(I saw a paper version, of course, but fortunately the same image was online, so I screenshotted it for you).

And my immediate thought was: What the fuck am I doing in a Taster’s Choice ad?!

I don’t remember getting paid for this. I’m not sure I even agree with the apostrophe: Taster’s Choice? You only bothered to get one taster to do the choosing? Maybe that’s the problem with your product.

I’m reminded of the time a college friend emailed me to ask if the woman third from the left was me:

It isn’t, but I actually wasn’t sure for a minute or two. Around 2004, I did photoshoots with a number of photographers for which I signed releases that said the photos could be used for commercial purposes, so it’s possible I could pop up someplace, advertising something. “Jennifer Dziura liked this product when she was in her early twenties. Now, not so much.”

Now that I think about it, instant coffee and urinals are a highly apropos product endorsement match.

Update: Thanks to Andrés for digging up this article about a man whose face was used on Taster’s Choice packaging without his permission.

English Abuse of the Day: “Artisan” is a NOUN, people, a noun!

March 30, 2009

Please stop, Starbucks.

“Artisan” is a noun. An artisan is a craftsperson. Something made by an artisan is “artisanal.”

If my shoes are made by a cobbler, they are not “cobbler shoes.” I could perhaps call them “cobbler-made shoes,” as I might call a wall made by a stonemason a “mason-built wall.” But not a “mason wall.” Because that’s stupid.

Fortunately, “artisan” comes ready-made with its own adjective: “artisanal”! Use it.

Starbucks: you are morons.

Au Bon Pain, you started this. Your bread may be artisanal, but your copy editing is apparently performed by monkeys.

Words Mean Things: “Into” versus “In To” Edition

March 10, 2009

From a popular music blog:

Look at me, I’m police!

Now that we all see the problem and its hilarious, unintended consequence…

Here is a nice definition of “into”:

1. from the outside to the inside of; to the midst or depths ofwalked into the house, jumped into the lake
2. advancing or continuing to the midst of (a period of time)dancing far into the night
3. to the form, substance, or condition of turned into a swan, divided into parts
4. so as to strike; against to bump into a door
5. to the work or activity of to go into teaching
6. in the direction of heading into a storm
7. ? INFORMAL involved in, interested in, or concerned with
8. ARITH. considered as a divisor of 3 into 21 is 7

Now let’s try to clear this up. The “to” in “in to” can mean “in order to.” For instance, “After pausing at the door, he went in to clear up the misunderstanding.” The “to” can be thought of as belonging to “clear up” — “to clear up” is an action. But “in to” is also appropriate when the “to” is simply a preposition (although sometimes a comma will be needed to separate “in” and “to” in such a case).

“Into” is a preposition that generally shows motion from the outside to the inside. You can think of it as an answer to the question, “Where?” “Into” can also suggest a change of state. He walked into a bar. He turned into a bat.

The police are not a place, so Chris Brown can’t walk “into” them. You can walk “into” a police station, but you can’t turn yourself “into” the police. Unless, of course, you are becoming the police. That is, “police,” plural. I’m pretty sure that’s impossible, unless you are sort of like the Transformers (who transformed from plural to singular) in reverse.

“In to” consists of two separate particles. In some cases, “to” is part of an infinitive (“to see,” “to learn,” etc.); in other cases, it is a preposition. I went in to see what was going on. I went in, to the dismay of all involved.

Another way to think of it is that “in to” combines the meanings of two separate words — someone goes “in,” in order “to” do something. Sometimes the “in” is idiomatic, such as the case of “turning oneself in” to police.

A good test to determine which one you need is to pause between the “in” and “to.” If that sounds okay, that’s a good clue you want “in to.” He turned himself in … to the police. Great. She went in … to the cave. That’s a little strange — it should be “into.”

Make me a sandwich!

Poof! You’re a sandwich!

Turn yourself into the police!

Poof! I’m the police!

Words (Specifically Pronouns) Mean Things

March 5, 2009

I read a sentence in Us Weekly that I wanted to blog about, but then I left my magazine behind in a nail salon, so I don’t have the exact text. However, here is a paraphrase of the sentence that set me off:

Jennifer Aniston finally encountered Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie face-to-face, four years after their marriage ended.

Every pronoun (with a few idiomatic exceptions, such as the “it” in “it’s raining”) must have an antecedent that matches in number, is unambiguous, and is actually stated in the sentence. A good rule is: If the sentence could be read another way due to its pronouns, and you’re using your outside knowledge or making assumptions to know what the sentence means, the sentence is probably grammatically incorrect.

A good example is the sentence, “Mary’s mother told her she should do her homework.” This is wrong, wrong, wrong on two counts. First, “Mary’s” is acting as an adjective — that is, “Mary” herself is not in the sentence, so, while the pronoun “her,” which occurs twice and is possessive, may refer back to the possessive “Mary’s,” the object pronoun “she” may not. (Subject and object pronouns may not refer back to possessives, whereas possessive pronouns have much less strict rules and may refer back to other possessives or to regular nouns).

But what, really, is the problem with “Mary’s mother told her she should do her homework”? We all know what it means, right? Well, sort of. If you said, “Mary’s father told her she should do her homework,” the “she” would still be wrong, but that’s a pretty pedantic point, since the meaning is unambiguous. But in the case of “Mary’s mother told her she should do her homework,” it is possible to read the sentence as “Mary’s mother told Mary that Mary’s mother should do Mary’s mother’s homework,” or “Mary’s mother told Mary that Mary should do Mary’s mother’s homework,” or even, “Mary’s mother told Mary that Mary’s mother should do Mary’s homework.” Most of these interpretations are unlikely or stupid. But the fact that they are possible (whereas they are not with the “father” sentence) means that the sentence is ambiguous.

Standardized tests love to exploit these alternate meanings by using sentences such as, “Ms. Chang angered the Senator by reporting that her company had violated the new environmental statutes.” What’s wrong here? After reading this far, you’ve probably inferred that the problem is that the Senator could be female, and that the pronoun is therefore ambiguous. Whose company is it? (If the sentence were in context and we knew the Senator to be male, then this sentence would be fine, just as it is, of course, fine to use a person’s name in one sentence and a pronoun in place of the name in subsequent sentences).

Back to Jen, Brad, and Angie. WHO THE HELL IS “THEIR”? (Or, more grammatically, “To whom the hell does ‘their’ refer?” Has anyone ever said “to whom the hell” before?)

Imagine the same sentence reworked, but in a case in which you had no outside information. “A finally encountered B and C, four years after their big fight.” Whom would you think had the fight? A and B? B and C? All three of them? If I changed “fight” back to “marriage,” you could quite reasonably infer that only two people may be involved, but would that tell you that A and B were the people who had been married?

Let’s fix it. One option is: “Jennifer Aniston finally encountered Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie face-to-face, four years after Aniston and Pitt’s marriage ended.” Or maybe, “Four years after her marriage to Brad Pitt ended, Jennifer Aniston finally encountered Pitt and Angelina Jolie face-to-face.” Or, “Four years after Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt’s marriage ended, Aniston finally encountered Pitt and Angelina Jolie face-to-face.”

Us Weekly? Call me.

Sincerely,

Jen

On the Subte in Buenos Aires

January 21, 2009

A subway poster for Prenatal Yoga featured an unflattering photo of a very pregnant woman on all fours.  The ad’s first sentence would have offended half of the women in New York: Pregnancy is a very special time in the life of every woman.  Seriously, it’s not an ad for a church — why offend people when you just want to sell them yoga?  Apparently this is inoffensive in Argentina.  The poster didn’t even go on to talk about yoga just yet — it continued in the same vein with something I couldn’t quite translate but I took to say something about how “although it’s only nine months,” it’s blah blah special blah blah women are babymaking machines and don’t you forget it blah blah.

Interestingly, in Spanish, it’s totally fine to just call people “embarazadas” (pregnants).  In English, in contrast, people usually don’t mean anything good when they say, for instance, “blacks” instead of “black people”; people with epilepsy prefer “people with epilepsy” to “epileptics.”   Calling pregnant women “pregnants” sounds seriously not right to a modern liberal English speaker.

Limp Diction

December 21, 2008

I am not free of the scourge of bad grammar even on the elliptical machine at the gym. Exhibit 1, this fitness magazine ad:

Women want in! To the freaking dictionary, apparently.

Exhibit 2, the closeup:

“Elicit” is a verb that means “prompt, bring forth.” “Illicit” is an adjective that means “illegal.”

Also, the last sentence has a real parallelism problem. Apparently, it should be noted that 1) it’s powerful, and 2) used with caution. It should be noted that used with caution.

Did Sarah Palin write this ad?

Retro Linkback: In 2005, I posted a picture of my college abs.

On the Use of the Subjunctive Mood in Popular Music

November 18, 2008

I’ve been known to rag on Beyonce before, but I’m warming up to the woman who can mesmerize with her thighs.

Here’s why.   

Pussycat Dolls, “Don’t Cha”

There’s this thing in English called the subjunctive mood.  We use it for conditional statements.  ”Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me” is not a correct use of the subjunctive mood.  (Ignoring “don’t cha,” the sentence really should’ve said “WERE hot like me.”  Similarly, later lyrics should say “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend WERE raw like me,” etc.) 

Skee-Lo’s 1995 classic “I Wish” also misuses the subjunctive mood.  This abuse has been going on for at least thirteen years. 

Skee-Lo, “I Wish”

This new Beyonce song, however, uses the subjunctive correctly, and features Beyonce as a hot lady cop.  Nice work! 

Beyonce, “If I Were a Boy”

The Dish or the Surgery

October 6, 2008

I was buying paper towels at Duane Reade when a woman asked a non-native-English-speaking employee where the rubber gloves were. I was about to tell her myself, but I would have been wrong, as it didn’t occur to me at that moment that there are more than one kind of rubber gloves.

The helpful employee said, “For the dish or for the surgery?”

She looked a little startled. “For the surgery,” she said, and they went off together to medical supplies. I was pleased that the imperfect use of English didn’t stop the job from getting done.

(See also, “Help Wanted Pizzaman” and NIGHTLY MAKE SEX AT GRASS!)

Casual Encounters with Grammar

September 12, 2008

An astute reader forwarded me this Craigslist Casual Encounters post (thanks, Stella!):

DISCRETE versus DISCREET — typos bug the sh*t out of me – m4w

---

Reply to: pers-832048841@craigslist.org Date: 2008-09-08, 1:11AM EDTit’s just a personal pet peeve… i can’t stand people that can’t write properly. i mean, there’s informal posting to message boards, but can we please keep to SOME standards? they’re, their, there. “definately” drives me crazy.the newest one while browsing the casual encounters is DISCRETE versus DISCREET. we’re all paranoid and therefore prefer DISCREET encounters. … on the other hand, DISCRETE is for, like, mathematicians that talk about discrete versus continuous numbers, etc.now, with that out of the way, is anyone interested in a discreet NSA relationship with a laid-back mid-30’s asian guy? i’m looking to hook up for the occasional boinking. (yes, boinking is a silly word, but i think CL readers might flag the post if i use other words.)reply back because deep down you’re a geek. but on the surface, you’re kinda horny right now. tell me about yourself, and don’t forget to include a pic.  

---

 I once had a Dartmouth professor change the word “discrete” (which I had meant to say) in my philosophy paper to “discreet,” which made no sense in context (as it wouldn’t in most philosophy papers).That being said, horny Asian dude, it’s “people WHO can’t write properly.” Not “that.”That is all.

Words Mean Things (Bipartisan Edition)

August 29, 2008

Noted by TPM – the GOP doesnt know were to put there’s apostrophes’:

 

From Punditkitchen.com: 

 

I daresay I might be accused of today’s word of the day…

July 21, 2008

grammatolatry

PRONUNCIATION:

(gram-uh-TOL-uh-tree)  

MEANING:

noun: The worship of words: regard for the letter while ignoring the spirit of something. 

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek gramma (letter) + -latry (worship). 

USAGE:

“The worship of words is more pernicious than the worship of images. Grammatolatry is the worst species of idolatry.”Robert Dale Owen; The Debatable Land Between This World And the Next; Trubner and Co; 1871. 

Word from Wordsmith.org. Previous grammar posts here.

“Like” versus “such as”

June 1, 2008

This photo I took of an advertisement on a building at 35th and 8th demonstrates a common grammatical error.

What the ad should have said, of course, is, “Works in over 200 countries, such as Japan.”

The way the ad is phrased now, it seems as though either Japan works in 200 countries, or else AT&T service works in over 200 countries — not including Japan itself — each of which is similar to Japan. Of course, there aren’t even 200 countries on Earth that could be said in any meaningful way to be “like Japan.”

In summary, “like” means “similar to,” and “such as” introduces examples.

NIGHTLY MAKE SEX AT GRASS!

February 15, 2008

Lately, I have been receiving a lot of emails from webmasters asking to trade links, but the sites are all wildly inappropriate (a sunglasses store, a wiffleball information site) and written in dubious English.

The latest was from “Simple Love Secrets,” a website that is truly tossing away all outmoded distinctions between subject and object pronouns, and on which all prepositions are interchangeable.

From the post Best Way to Make Him Felt Hot:

14. Ask him to park the car in imperceptible place and to have sex at the back seat.

15. Nightly came at the garden and make sex at grass, under the tree, anywhere.

I also look forward to the great success I might experience with #12, “Bed him down the back and start to have sex.” I think I need a diagram.

Naughty FreshDirect Copywriters

November 16, 2007

Seriously, did they think no one would notice?

“You’ll never take it in the can again”?

Maybe, actually, you’d want some hydrogenated oils for that.

I see that not all comedy writers are on strike.

(Also, it’s “the perfect complement“, not “compliment”).

New York Post style book (or maybe it was the Daily News)

June 8, 2007

Headline seen on tabloid someone else was reading on the subway:

Atl. City strangler suspect admitted killing: hooker

And I’m thinking, You don’t need a colon before a list of just one thing! And then I realized that the colon is the Post’s method of attribution. As in:

GAL: KIN SAW COP SLAY

So the Atlantic City strangler suspect admitted a killing, says a hooker. The suspect did not (necessarily) kill a hooker.

Punctuation means stuff!

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