Tuesday, May 1

I hold Gerard, Jamie and Will accountable, too

There are two movies in this world that, by virtue of their titles only, are among the most irritating to me. And as fate would have it, both are on regular rotation lately on my premium movie channels.
The first, Law Abiding Citizen, fails at the most basic of grammatical laws, the hyphenated descriptor. In every way, the title should be hyphenated into LAW-ABIDING CITIZEN. Because it's a movie that, no doubt, the director, writer and/or producer thought should have some nuance, they chose to give it a title with a glaring error.
The second is The Pursuit of Happyness. I've never seen this movie, and that is for one very obvious, very enraging reason. I can't even explain it. If you can't tell by the title, do you even know me? I can't stand the sight of it, and the thought of actually watching the movie with such a cavalier attitude toward basic spelling is not something I could stomach. I didn't even want the ticket with the movie's title in my pocket.
As I said, both movies are now on my movie channels, and I'm forced to read these titles regularly as I scroll through my menu looking for something to watch. And every time I see them, I get mad and pissy at the movie studio hacks who decided that deliberate misspellings and basic grammatical failures were the best way of getting the public's attention. One of my pet peeves, which I'm not sure is listed to the left there but will be before this night is through, is the deliberate misspelling of a word for promotional, marketing or "clever" effect. Think FROOT, KORNER and the like. I guarantee, if you never thought to be bugged by them before now, I will have increased your likelihood of being bugged from them in the future. I should hold a seminar for advertising and marketing people. My first lecture: "Don't Spell Something Wrong on Purpose. People Will Think You're Dumb."

No comments: