Someone Already Wrote the Letter I Was Going To Write

Reblogged from Pittsburgh Thoughts

Gain and "Gooder"

I had to watch this advertisement in advance of viewing the video I had chosen to watch. It wasn't on Youtube therefore there wasn't an embed code to post it directly. In it, over the inspiratinal music about heaven, and the video of some old guy that looks kind of like me putting on a shirt as if it's an orgasmic experience, the announcer says, "Bill's morning have never been "Gooder."

I thought to myself, "Did he just say "gooder?" I replayed it and sure enough, he said "gooder." I was appalled and wrote this to Gain:

I am witting to express my disgust with your use of the made up term, "gooder."
You should be ashamed of yourselves. Who do you think you're appealing to, 8 year olds? This perversion of the English language is unacceptable and you should immediately cease and desist and issue an apology. Why not communicate in grunts and groans next? I'm sure your patrons would think it was a blast. You may  turn your back on your social responsibility but I will do everything within my power to denounce you and your tactics to others by asking them if they really need to patronize a product advertised by people that have no respect for them or the English lanquage.

 

They wrote back:

 

Thanks for writing.

Thanks for your comments and concern.  We chose to use the word Good’er for a dramatic effect. This was an attempt to play off of the expression “Have a Good Morning”.  We believe that families and companies should be doing all they can to promote education.  The process of doing laundry can often be a boring, monotonous process. The Gain team is hoping to make this process just a little bit more fun, and this is often demonstrated in the advertising.

 

Mary
Gain Team 

 

 

Finally I wrote:

                   

Perverting the English language is fun? Please recognize your place in the world, you sell soap. Soap is in itself a marvelous thing, there is no need to embellish its properties or effects. Don't try to make it hip by obfuscating our already decreasing ability to communicate with one another, in short we don't need dumbed down by a soap company. You need to appeal to the better segments of your target audience not the worst.

I don't know if I'm crazy, if they're crazy or why I give a fuck. But somewhere deep down it offends me that they can foist this kind of garbage on the public in the name of making their product "funner." 

Blogger's note: Unfortunately, the Pittsburgh Thoughts guy misspelled "language". 

For another fun activity, scroll through the YouTube comments on the commercial.

My favorites: "This commercial makes me want to beat that shirt sniffing illiterate old fart with a rather large dictionary."

"Gooder is an actual word. It's just annoying as hell. Thumbs up, bitches, if you hate the word, gooder!" (It isn't).

"It was outsourced to a country where english is a second language."

Artists Who Hate Me

(A response to I Annoy Artists)


i stopped reading as soon as i saw you were writing to correct my spelling.








Blogger's Note: The day after I wrote this, Natalie Dee posted this as the day's cartoon. 

Coincidence? I think not.

I Annoy Artists

For reference: Natalie Dee is the artist behind a self-titled comic (found here) which often features adorably sarcastic vegetables.

Natalie Dee-

Sorry to bother you, girl. But we need to talk about your cartoon from

Tuesday (http://www.nataliedee.com/052510/the-spider-and-mans-inhumanity-to-man.jpg).

It's a decent analysis, I'll admit, though I will have to disagree about

your interpretation of the role of the sun. In such an outwardly optimistic

song, which nonetheless forebodes of future disaster, I'd have to hazard the

sun as a manifestation of Maximilien Robespierre or a Robespierre-esque

figure, which promises warmth in the beginning but, when channeled through

the magnifying glass of political power, will cause the scorching death of

the itsy bitsy spider. But that's not the point.

What we need to talk about is your improper spelling of the impersonal

possessive. I quote, "The spider continues to doggedly scale it's heights".

"It's" is appropriate in just two situations: as a contraction meaning "it

is" and as a possessive of Stephen King's novel "It" or the movie based on

it ("It"). I did consider that you might have been using one of these but if

that were that case the problems with your grammatical choices would be far

more severe. I'm going to have to ignore that for the time being. Let's just

assume that what you meant was "its".

People mess that up and write "it's" a lot because English possessives often

use apostrophes. The reason "its" doesn't have an apostrophe is it's a

possessive of a pronoun. Think about it, "his" and "her", "our" and "their"

don't use the apostrophe. They also don't use an s, but just pretend it's

irrelevant. I don't want to lecture you here, but you opened that door by

having and academically themed cartoon. Messing up your grammar like that

just rips away at your credibility as an analyst. I'm trying to look out for

you.

Much respect,

Email Status: Replied

I Win, But Am Sort of Disappointed By Lack of Drama

A response to BookByte: Things Get Serious

Hello and thank you for contacting us.

The ISBN you entered in at time of purchase was 9780078791420 for “Glencoe Spanish Buen Viaje!, by Schmitt, Level 3, Grades 9-12” the ISBN we received from you was ISBN 9780078619908  for “Buen Viaje! Glencoe Spanish 3, by Schmitt, 2nd Edition, Grades 9-12” which has no system value and we are not purchasing it at this time.

We do not normally return incorrect books that are sent to us for any reason, this is why we ask that you enter in ISBNs found from the front copyright page of the book, to verify the ISBN for the book is correct. All incorrect books sent to us are recycled or donated. However I will courtesy return this book to you via Expedited shipping.

Regards,

Jamie King

Bookbyte.com Customer Service Representative

(Note: I am so upset I don't get to sic the BBB on somebody's ass. And I did enter the ISBN Number.)
(But they did send me the book. It's sitting, completely useless, on my bookshelf. For now. But when the new ice age comes and I'm looking around for things to burn, I'll be glad to have it.)

BookByte Bites: Things Get Serious

To customerservice@bookbyte.com:


I sent you Buen Viaje! Glencoe Spanish 3, by Schmitt, 2nd Edition, Grades 9-12 by Schmitt, Conrad J./ Woodford, Protase E. for which you promised $24.50. I see now that you have taken my book and decided, without contacting me, to pay me nothing. I assume that you will now be using that book nonetheless, having obtained it for free, and there is no way for me to get it back. From online research I have found you do this sort of thing often and the unsuspecting sellers are powerless. Have you any plans to honor your end of our little agreement or do you really plan on stealing my book, which, even were it of minimal academic value would have worth as kindling? Some day, when "The Day After Tomorrow" happens, and I can count the hours of my life by the books on my bookshelf, that's going to be on you. In the hopefully nearer future, I'll be siccing the BBB on your ass.

May I please have my book back?

Sincerely,

Email Status: Responded
The Response

I'll Be Bach

Seriously though.

New posts to return in September. Get pumped, nobody.