“How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension!
Psalm 147:5″
These were the words I read on the card.
When I went out to get the paper this morning, I discovered that sometime during the night someone had also delivered a new phone book. An orange plastic bag on our front porch contained “The Real Yellow Pages” (does anyone else think this is the tail wagging the dog?). Inside the house, removing the phone book from the bag, I also found this card, presumably inserted by the contractor who delivered the book.
I turned the card over and saw this:
Words (almost) fail me. This seems to me the ultimate illustration of why copy editors are needed for everything, no matter how small.
The first thing to strike me, of course, was “You are going to like are work.” I confess that I don’t always distinguish “our” from “are” as carefully as I should in speaking, but I certainly know the difference in writing!
Then I was struck by “Mr. & Mrs. Smith Granicrete.” After some consideration, I came to the conclusion that “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” must be the name of the company (analogous to “Smith & Sons Tile”) rather than of the contractors, but it still has an odd ring.
Passing over such minor technicalities as the superfluous period after “installer” and the defective spacing of the phone number, the email address is just sad. Quite aside from the misspelling, its inappropriateness for a countertop installer is pathetic. As far as I know, Yahoo email addresses are free; why not get one just for the business?
It is beyond comprehension to me that someone would try to promote a business with these cards. The telling detail here, though—which shows up better in the scanned image than on the card itself—is the perforated edge. The cards are homebrew, printed on a desktop inkjet printer. There is no shame in that: I print my own business cards as well. One reason I prefer to print my own is that I can print a single sheet of ten and, when they are used up, change the content as needed. In this instance, I would say several changes are needed before another batch is printed.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009, at 10:19 pm |
Rant-worthy material like this is truly a gift when it drops in your lap. Or on your front porch The email address, alone, is proof-positive that copy editors are needed FOR EVERYTHING!