Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Writing Wednesday: NoBODY knows apostrophes

Hopefully you are not too offended by bare legs from an underwear ad! I got this flyer in the mail from Victoria's Secret and was appalled that they used an apostrophe to make the word body plural — so appalled, in fact, that I immediately posted a picture to Instagram.

Yes, I am aware that they're playing off the name of their bra. Yes, I know that they're trying to catch your attention by using the word body. But there are so many different ways they could have gone with this ad, none of which required them to write the word bodies (which would have been correct).

Moral of the story: Don't use an apostrophe to make any words plural (with the exception of "do's and don'ts"). It instantly lowers the credibility of your blog — or, in this case, a pricey print ad.

Have you seen any advertising mishaps lately? Do plurals trip you up?

5 comments:

  1. this drives me crazy as well!

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  2. No words!! I have no words for this mess.

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  3. I just bought these bras on my recent shopping adventure. For me they are miraculous. Haha.

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  4. this made me laugh, i don't have have all the grammar rules down pat but still, that ad made me cringe. I can't think of any ads off the top of my head but there are a couple of blogs I read regularly that have a lot of spelling mistakes and weird grammatical errors. It's makes it hard to read their writing because the mistakes are distracting.

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  5. Wow, so glad you mentioned this and even if they're trying to make it a clever ad, VS should know better. You're so right that they should never be used to make a word plural. :)

    Nice post!

    xoDale
    http://www.savvyspice.com

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Thanks for sharing your beautiful thoughts! I love reading them.