Back to School Time!
Back, by popular demand, it's:
This instalment of Apostrophe Watch is directed at footwear and clothing manufacturer/retailer Rivers (check out their web site for more crimes against language, including the use of non-words like "womens"). Rivers have an advertisement on TV for children's footwear, displaying a series of photos of shoes, sandals etc.
To start with, the ad makes a common mistake. It displays text like "Boy's Shoes" and "Girl's Sandals" - implying that the shoes and sandals only belong to one boy or girl. The correct text is, of course, "Boys' Shoes" and "Girls' Sandals".
But then it just gets ridiculous. More than once the ad has text like this: "Boys's Shoes". I think it also says "Girls's Shoes" at one point.
Who makes these commercials? Ten year olds? No ... by ten we've learned the basic rules of using apostrophes for ownership. Maybe it's five year olds.
What's most interesting is that the ad begins with the text, "It's Back to School Time!"
It sure is, Rivers. It sure is.
Comments
# Euan
27/01/2006 2:17 PM
If someone is stupid enough to put boys's in to a sentance I would like to hear the stupid prick pronounce it. "Boyses" ... What an idiot.
# Euan
27/01/2006 2:20 PM
This sort of stuff concerns me more and more as I get older because children will pick up on bad/inappropriate abreviations and spelling until everything looks like an SMS message.
"Hey m8 wot r u up 2 tday?" - Personally I prefer full words in my SMS messages... am I a weirdo?
# mabster
27/01/2006 4:11 PM
You are, but that's ok because you're not alone. I, too, spell out my SMS messages. It's a lot easier to do nowadays with predictive text input etc.
Us weirdos have to stick together!
# crucible
28/01/2006 9:24 PM
I'm not perfect, mabster picks me up on 10 new things daily... but I'll agree with you on the SMS issue.
To think that someone handed in an essay in SMS-talk in England - and this is going back a couple of years, still worries me.
It's beginning to really explain why more and more people cannot spell to save their lives, why people abbreviate in even emails, or still feel like they don't need to use any punctuation.
It's enough to make you weep sometimes, and severely messes up the message they're trying to send half the time. If I have to call you up and clarify the message then the email was a waste of time and saved you Nothing.
The only issue I have with full words in SMS is that I always tend to write two or three messages even. Although I guess the people that do this wonderful way of speaking, barely type enough that one message would be used if they wrote it in full anyway.
Point is, make us a republic, run for President, and you've got my vote.
And I can't stand predictive text. I know it's a tool to make our lives easier, I just can't stand being told what I'm going to say.
# mabster
28/01/2006 9:51 PM
Interesting. I find predictive text to be a real timesaver. Well, apart from the maybe 5% of the time that I need to type a word that's not in my phone's dictionary.
I saw another apostrophe-watch-worthy sentence today. It was on a music-video show, which was showing a Pussycat Dolls film-clip. The text began, "The Pussycat Dolls say their all about..." (which of course should have been, "they're all about...").
# crucible
29/01/2006 10:16 PM
funniest part about that is that you watch pussycat dolls film clips... I can't stand them either.
# Euan
30/01/2006 12:14 PM
So did you see the cover of "Men's Health" magazine?
Men's? Is that right?
# mabster
30/01/2006 12:35 PM
"Men's" is definitely right. It's the health of men, rather than a single man (which would be "Man's Health").
Was there another error on that mag's cover?
# Euan
30/01/2006 1:42 PM
But isnt Men's refering to a plural?
Isn't that like Boy's shoes?
# mabster
30/01/2006 2:47 PM
"Boy's shoes" is incorrect in the context of the Rivers ad because they're advertising shoes for a whole bunch of boys, not just one. It should be "Boys' Shoes".
If you think of "Boy" as "Man" and "Shoe" as "Health" then the singular title of the magazing would be "Man's Health". But since the magazine is talking about the health of men in general, they use the plural: "Men's Health".
So it's perfectly correct.