 |
A project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. By Mark Hurst. |
| About Mark Hurst | Mark's Gel Conference | New York Times Story on This Is Broken | Newsletter: Subscribe | RSS Feed |
Search this site:
Categories:
- Advertising
- Current Affairs
- Customer Service
- Fixed
- Food and Drink
- Just for Fun
- Misc
- Not broken
- Place
- Product Design
- Signs
- Travel
- Web/Tech
Previous: Sequence of hours in the day | Main | Next: Star Wars gift bag
May 17, 2005 12:05 AM
Broken: AdvantEdge discount coupon
Robert McLaughlin points out this AdvantEdge nutrition bar coupon for .50 cents off... what a deal!
I was hoping the cash value was greater than the discount, but alas, it says it's worth 1/100th of a cent in the small print.
Interesing...I've gotten quite used to puncuation and other errors in written media, even publications which should definitely know better. But I thought everybody knew money! An indecisive proofreader perhaps?
Yes =D, there are bigger things to worry about. I thought we were here to have some fun about some of life's little foibles.
And as you point out, the coupon could technically be interpreted as a half-cent discount. It's good for a chuckle, but it creates a bit of confusion, however momentarily or minor. Definitely broken.
well, it probably couldn't actually be mistaken as a 1/2 cent discount, because the UPC is probably correct.
ja, julesh, i've gotten used to punctuation error's too. Like evry time there's an "s" people fell the need to put an apostrophe in front of it. Including my school, and I think that's sad.
(btw, in some counties in FL, including mine, today is the last day of school)
This is so common in the USA that while I laughed at it as a child, now I realize that it is just sad. No one will ever fix these signs, because everyone is supposed to know what it means. What's strange is that out of all the big + frivolous class-action lawsuits, typos like this haven't caught on. I believe that's why they have the fine print in any ad here that says the prices aren't necessarily right in the ad.
I wonder how many people actually think to themsleves "only half a cent off, that's not a good deal"! But more importantly, is this just an "honest mistake" or is this a language-wide, systemic problem? My feeling is it's the latter.
Like the word "biweekly". Does that mean twice a week or every two weeks? Decide what you think it means, and then look at Merriam-Webster:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=biweekly&x=0&y=0
Re: biweekly
Word-net gives both meanings -- every two weeks and twice a week..
The OED says in a parenthetical note under the bi-prefix entry The ambiguous usage is confusing, and might be avoided by the use of semi-; e.g. semi-monthly, semi-weekly; cf. half-yearly.
If you have access to the OED on line, see http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50021523/50021523se65?query_type=word&queryword=biweekly&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=1&search_id=ActH-H4KsJR-4705&hilite=50021523se65.
What's broken in this context is probably the language.
I think I'm broken - I had to look at it at least three times before I figured out what was broken about it!
Mind you there is a new law in CA as of 1/1 that says advertisers MUST honor the lowest posted price. If hamburger is listed as .99 cents a pound then you can lawfully buy it at a penny a pound (rounded up) and they lawfully MUST sell it to you, even if they change the sign to 99. cents a pound. I drop a line to the companies who advertise this way and get more coupons for my troubles. I have a handful of these now, when I get 100 I'll try to get on the Jay Leno show. And yes, a pet peeve is also the 's you see everywhere. There is a place down the road that does "Tax'es", I need a picture of that next. :)
There is a great book out there about punctuation and its de-evolution in modern, information-intensive society with plenty of anecdotes and examples. It's called "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" The author's name is Lynne Somethingorother. If you're reading/posting to TIB you'll probably like this book.
Man! I hope the place that does Tax'es is better with decimal points than they are with apostrophes.
It never ceases to amaze me, the level of inadequacy some have in their own lives, that they spent time criticizing others. They would better serve themselves with internal searching to fill the sad suffering voids or remain in the third grade forever.
DAMN YOU BOB, ANOTHER 4 WEEKS TO GO!
FOr public schools up here in MA who have to make up snow days, it's like 6 weeks!
WTH IS BROKEN ABOUT THIS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
I CAN'T FIND THE BROKEN THING ANYWHERE IN THAT PHOTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Sequence of hours in the day | Main | Next: Star Wars gift bag
Lol...I work retail, and I'd definitely only take half a cent off for that coupon! That's awesome. And definitely worth cutting it out.
Oh, no wait, um,..."That isn't broken, You're broken! 'cause...um...you don't realize that it's actually supposed to be fifty cents? No, wait, because there are bigger things to worry about. Right, that's it. You're broken."
Did I pretty much cover all of 'em?
=D
Posted by: =David at May 17, 2005 02:03 AM