I make "typos" (a.k.a. spelling mistakes) all the time. Even though WordPress has a built-in Jacuba spell checker, like all such programs, it's an idiot savant (that doesn't recognize the word "Jacuba"). If you misspell a word, but it's a legitimate word (just out of context), the hidden school marm says nought. And Jac doesn't do Jack on the headline bit (i.e. this morning's Freudian header about the "Dodge Durange"). All that said, if I was a highly-paid copywriter carefully crafting laudatory prose for a glossy Car and Driver insert on the "world's first two mode [why no hyphen?] SUV," I'd make damn sure I correctly spelled the ALL CAPS text underneath the arrows pointing to the vehicle's seven salient features. And you'd kinda hope that if I did miss something, the next guy up the literary food chain would catch it. No such luck here: "LOW ROLLING RESISTENCE TIRES." An indication of GM's quality control? Perhaps. Oh, and Jacuba caught it.
[Thanks to Arcata Eye for the tip.]
At $50K+ a pop, there’s going to be a lot of sales “resistence” too.
I thought Durange was deliberate… referring to the whole range of slow-selling Chrysler SUVs.
GM print ads are laden with infelicities and downright dunderheaded verbiage. In the November C/D, a Cadillac ad includes this:
“When it comes to high-tech features, the CTS bristles with a wide array of them…”
How about instead:
“The CTS bristles with a wide array of high-tech features…”
Or better yet, lose the bristling and wide array and just list the features with minimum hype and distraction, as do the ads for the cars GM is benchmarking.
Am I wrong, or does the boasting about “high-tech features” seem like a throwback to the Max Headroom era?
The copy writers are larding the ads with extra words for page layout reasons rather than to provide information.
So, is there supposed to be something subliminal about the giant windmills in the background? To me it says ‘we are using windpower to save oil so that you can use it to power your bloated piece of crap’.
Hybridization has vaulted the 2008 Yukon Hybrid’s mileage up to a whopping 20/21.
Hopefully the wind turbines will disperse the fumes from this honking behemoth.
Here are the last two paragraphs from Motor Trend’s comparison of the M3, C63 AMG, and RS4 in the latest issue:
But I’ll take the BMW. The driver’s choice. It has the best handling, the fastest cornering, the most responsive engine, and is the most nimble. Plus, when you’re bearing down on the 8400-rpm cutoff, engine yowling like a Formula 1 racer, you know you’re in something truly special.
Not that it’s the racer’s choice. For sheer speed, M3 now makes way for C63. A car that proves there is no substitute for cubes. As Detroit, home of the V-8, has known for years.
Is it just me, or are the sentences in bold not really sentences?
This 21st Century email and txting culture is compromising our proper English language.
Better to get it quickly and conveniently than proper? Hmmm…
Everyone has seen the email that says, “Reserchers have fuond that the propur speling of words is not necesary to get one’s piont across. All that is reqired are the corect ferst and last leters of thoze werds.”
Not that I’m condoning misspelled advertising…or 6,000 lb / 20mpg / 5-7 passenger/ $50k hybrids.
How are my wife and I supposed to refrain from laughing histerically at one of these monsters as we pass them on the road? (In our 4,500 lb, 26mpg, 8 passenger Odyssey? We’ll have to hold up a little sign that says “You got punk’d, beeyotch!”
How are my wife and I supposed to refrain from laughing histerically at one of these monsters as we pass them on the road? (In our 4,500 lb, 26mpg, 8 passenger Odyssey? We’ll have to hold up a little sign that says “You got punk’d, beeyotch!”
We recently traded a 4WD Suburban for an Odyssey (for convenience, not for mileage). We have not been much of a mileage difference, however. My wife is the primary driver (and was in the Suburban) and drives about 80% in town and about 20% highway. The Suburban averaged about 14 MPG while the Odyssey is seeing about 16 MPG. On one tank, we took a trip which was almost all interstate and still didn’t break 20 MPG (the Suburban, on similar trips, got 17-18 MPG). Hopefully, the Odyssey will improve as it breaks in, but I don’t think it will be much better.
My wife only drives about 12,000 miles per year, so her fuel savings is about 107 gallons or $300 per year. That’s not much.
Don’t get me wrong, you can’t beat the convenience or the ride quality (and the handling, in the Honda’s case) and I wouldn’t trade it back, but if someone is trading based on mileage, they’ll be disappointed…