Vowel movements

I said earlier that I don’t tend to post about typos, as they’re usually pretty mundane. ‘Unless,’ I said, ‘the word ought to have been something like “shot” or “bigger”.’

As is the synchronicitous way of things, shortly after that post I found myself poring over the takeaway menu from our local Indian restaurant, wondering what to have for dinner. The item below caught my eye – for all the wrong reasons, obviously.

An embarrassing slip for any restaurant to make. Given the traditional caricature of Indian food, and its gastrointestinal ramifications, this does seem especially unfortunate. But still very appealing to the schoolboy element of my sense of humour.

(The takeaway, by the way, was delicious. If you’re around my part of Surrey, I heartily recommend The Dorking Brasserie. But perhaps not their proof-reader.)

Filed under: Typos

And the prize for Most Bizarre And Misplaced Dirty Harry Reference goes to…

…my local Esso garage. Quite how you get from Clint Eastwood blowing away a gang of stick-up men in Sudden Impact to the impulse purchase of a cheap bouquet is rather beyond me.

(Don’t you also love the weasliness of ‘make their day’? Some bright spark in a meeting somewhere said, ‘Isn’t “her” a bit limiting? And possibly sexist?’)

Filed under: Confusing

Experience Corner: No 1

For a long time, Private Eye ran a ‘Solutions’ column, collecting all those ridiculous uses of ‘solutions’, like describing cardboard boxes as Christmas Ornament Storage Solutions. They seem to have got bored of that now, and I can’t say I blame them. But it was fun while it lasted.

In similar spirit, I thought it was time I started ‘Experience Corner’. As I sat chewing my muesli this morning, my eye fell on the back of the Alpen bag, where I read this:

And this:

In both cases, you could drop the word experience without any loss of meaning. (Or perhaps, without compromising your reading experience.)

So why is it there? And why in God’s name is everything an ‘experience’ these days? I can’t go to a shop, I have to have a retail experience. I can’t eat at a restaurant, I have to have a dining experience.

I know what it means when people use it internally, as part of their business-speak. They mean the complete package: not just the food, for example, but the service, décor and ambience.

Fine. Use it internally. But don’t inflict it on the public. They’re happy enough to enjoy ‘that unique Alpen taste’, or ‘a deliciously creamy breakfast’, without unnecessary words floating about in it.

I’d be very grateful if you could send me your own examples of this silly and annoying copywriting habit. Thanks, and have a nice day experience.

Filed under: Experience Corner, Jargon, Verbiage

Wagamama slips up on the pavement

What is it with restaurant brands and question marks?

This ad, applied to the pavement near the Westfield Shopping Centre in London (or to give it its official title, The Howling White Desert of The Soul) is one of those examples where punctuation really does alter meaning.

Imagine someone pointing out a hairstyle and saying, ‘Fancy having your hair done like that?’ That sounds fairly positive. It sounds like they’ve spotted something they think might work quite well for you.

‘Fancy having your hair done like that,’ sounds a bit different. Not quite so positive now. Like Mary Whitehouse spotting a mohawk.

Fancy a big brand like Wagamama making such a basic mistake.

Filed under: Punctuation

Eagle-Eyed Reader Of The Month Award

The prize goes to my sometime client and fellow tweeter, Belfast-based graphic designer Gareth Hammond, for this one. He sent me these shots of a recent press ad for the Samsung Galaxy S phone.

Normally, when someone says they spotted a typo, it’s quite a mundane affair, unless the word ought to have been something like ‘shot’ or ‘bigger’.

But this one is definitely embarrassing, albeit not for that sort of tittery reason. Gareth also supplied a close-up, thank heavens:

I mean, if you’re going to put a shot of your product in an ad, it probably makes sense to check that everything on it is right. You wouldn’t use a shot of a car if it had a flat tyre, would you?

Silly Samsung. Clever Gareth.

Filed under: Contributions, Typos