Down at the bottom, waiting for us with jaws wide open is the Great Monster of Linguistic Bollocks
His droppings are all around us. I saw one as I queued in the Tesco near College Green. It was on a pack of coffee made by Carte Noir called for no sane or even conceivable reason I can imagine “Instinct”. It read “Take your coffee moments to a new level.” Hang on, maybe it was “Takes your coffee moments to a new level.” Or could it have been “Take your coffee moment to a new level”? Or possibly “Take your coffee moments to a new level”. No, I think it was perhaps “Take your coffee moments to new levels.” Which level or levels might they be? Playful ones? Titillating? Voluptuous? Orgasmic, even? However you play around with singulars and plurals, this is utter tripe. Yet semi-sentient humans produce it by the bushel every day. They are the folk who decide they are “passionate” about what they do. I am waiting for some urinal manufacturer to declare that they cherish an undying passion for turds. All over the world po-faced, overpaid, intellectually under-powered executives sit in meeting rooms and debate this sort of thing. All because some fool thinks they need “a line” – and imagines it will make a difference. Or, to take another example, insanely presuming that any normal person wants to “follow” or even “like” their replacement windows. They think this will “engage” people – or rather “consumers”. Meanwhile, ordinary, sane folks get on with their lives, passionate about things that matter to them, and ignoring ones that don’t. Which reminds me, when I wrote the other day about those people about to open a steak’n’art restaurant near the Tesco I just mentioned, I forgot they have a line too. “Hot Steak. Cool Art.” Can’t you just imagine someone saying, “Wow, look at that Bill! Certainly gets the old gastric juices going!” Oh dear.
