Going big instead of home

CHICKEN LICKEN: QUIRKY, DIFFERENT TELEVISION AD SHOT IN ICELAND

May we all have a minute’s silence, please, for another quiet death in the grammar family in South Africa. And in that moment of silence, please consider the role you played in the deliberate dispatching of a word which used to have a role and was a part of the way we spoke and lived.

The word is “are” and the pedants, like me, laying a wreath at its grave in the cemetery of language will acknowledge that the marketing industry had a lot to do with it.

So, for example: “We taking four lucky winners on a trip to …”; “We opening our arms to you …”; “We waiting to serve you …” Etc, etc, etc. It’s pidgin English. But sadly, all of us, including me, are guilty of it. Why have we decided to short-cut it out of our vocabulary? Are we lazy? Do we not know any better?

Latest example – and this is only because it flashed quickly across my mind – was in a radio commercial the other day for First National Bank, where “are” was chopped a couple of times from sentences. There are a few possible conclusions which can be drawn from this.

Firstly, the ad copywriters left the word out. I do realise that language is not the thing it was, but I generally think our marketing wordsmiths are not bad at what they do, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt. More likely, though, is the fact that the voice artists doing the ad simply read it the way they speak … sans “are”.

The problem is that wherever the problem originated, nobody in a position of authority noticed, or if they did, they let it go as being minor.

Maybe it is, but I don’t know if I would like to deal with a bank – that most pedantic of institutions – if it was not accurate in everything it did.

So, an Onion for FNB, but also to everyone else who does it.

You ARE annoying me …

Do you agree or disagree? Let me know: