Friday, June 05, 2009

Grammar Police on Overtime

I admit that I am one of those persons who has been accused of being a member of the Grammar Police, but I try to not do it too often. Still, I get annoyed when the English language is under assault.
The latest case came last night, as Val and I watched the Pittsburgh Penguins-Detroit Red Wings hockey game, which Pittsburgh won, 4-2. A local Honda dealer commercial came on, and listed on the screen some of the cars it was offering at great prices, etc. These cars include, in alphabetical order, "Accord's" and "Civic's."
Are you freaking kidding me? Do you mean to tell me that no one at this dealer, at Honda or the company that made the commercial know how to make a word plural? For the utter vast majority of the time, all you do is add the letter "l." And at NO time, as in never, is a word made plural by adding an apostrophe before the "s," as in the examples above.
I bet a proof reader or copy editor would have offered five minutes to look over this commercial, unless people are proud of the lack of ability to use their native language.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Cathy Carfagna said...

Hi, Kevin, Yes, I noticed that irritating ad too...Along the same lines, last night we saw a commercial for a MONSTER TRUCK SMASHING EVENT that proudly touted itself as MAYHAM (ummm.. WHAT? A springtime sandwich?) The target demographic is probably not English majors, but still..

1:27 PM  
Anonymous Mike Miller said...

What about the lack of an apostrophe in "Tim Hortons"?

2:03 PM  

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