Even More Stupid Radio Commercials
Nov 18th, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 2 Comments |
The Lipizzaner Stallions are coming to the DC area, a new radio commercial tells us.
Come and see their “[amazing?] leaps in the airs above the ground.” (I think “amazing” was the adjective, but I can’t remember.)
The first time I heard the commercial I didn’t notice the mistake.
The second time I heard the mistake, but thought I had perhaps misheard.
The third time I was sure. “Leaps in the airs above the ground.”
It’s what the announcer said. And I found it extremely annoying.
So I came home to write a post about it, and ran a search for the Lipizzaner Stallions (thank goodness for Google’s “did you mean . . . ?” function!)
Or, rather, I was on my way home, and decided to write a post about it when I reached home.
Turns out, some of their talents/moves/tricks are called “Airs Above The Ground.” There are several of them. I suppose one such move is called an “air” (as certain tunes are called), and so multiple ones would be “airs.”
And some of the airs do involve “leaps,” so I guess we should come to see them for the leaps that they perform in their Airs Above the Ground (but not for the other things they do in their Airs Above the Ground).
Anyway, that’s not as important as this:
I figured out why stupid radio commercials are annoying (even though this one didn’t turn out to be a stupid radio commercial after all).
It’s that to understand what someone else says, you have to mean their words for yourself. You hear their words, not their meaning. So you have to give meaning to their words to be able to understand them.
But if the words they picked force you to mean/think something stupid in order to understand them, it’s annoying.
“They made me think something stupid,” you feel to yourself. “I was trying to be nice to them by understanding what they said, and they return the favor by having said something stupid which I can only understand by meaning something stupid.”
This is where the “Don’t insult my intelligence” retort comes from, I think.
Anyway, I learned something new.
The other annoying thing for me is simply that it conveys a certain disrespect. Grammar and syntax are not rocket science. If the advertiser does not care enough to get it right, why should I care enough to bother with his product?
It seems like there are 2 possibilities, niether of which are fill me with a desire to support what they are doing:
A) The advertiser thinks I’m too ignorant to notice his mistakes.
B) The advertiser is too incompetent to notice the mistakes himself.
Basically, either he thinks I’m an idiot or he actually is an idiot. Either way, I’m not really interested in buying what he’s selling.
*grin* Yeah. I agree.