GrammarBlog

Mocking Poor Grammar
Since 2007

A noun that is formed from a verb and which describes an action. In English it ends in -ing, eg 'the baking of bread' and 'Smoking damages your health'.

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16 Comments »

1. I know – I sent them an email the first time I saw it.

   Comment by Josephus Flavius — 20th November, 2008 @ 9:53 pm

2. I’m reading the critically-acclaimed “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell, and because I’m enjoying it, I was willing to forgive the first dangling participle I encountered, assuming it would be a one-off. The second one not twenty pages later gave me some cause for concern, so I read more warily. The third had me howling with laughter and reaching gleefully for the blue pencil. Here it is, on page 101. Luisa Rey is driving across the bridge towards a nuclear plant when Mitchell flings out this classic whopper: “Crossing the long, long bridge, the Swanneke B plant emerges from behind the older, greyer cooling towers of Swanneke A.”They don’t come much better than this, do they?Catehurricanecate at yahoodotcalm

   Comment by Anonymous — 20th November, 2008 @ 10:26 pm

3. I’m so happy that I’m not the only one who noticed this. I was mentioning it to a friend only a few days ago. It really is appalling.

   Comment by evolution — 21st November, 2008 @ 8:56 am

4. Only in Whole Foods, do I see the word “fewer” used correctly, as in, “15 items or fewer.”

   Comment by Kathleen — 21st November, 2008 @ 7:00 pm

5. While I don’t like it either, I actually do not find it so egregious. I mean, I don’t think what they’re trying to say is “We have a smaller countable number of commercials than other networks.” I would imagine it’s more along the lines of “The time given over to advertising—i.e., the ‘commercials’ part of our programming—is less.” Perhaps a fine distinction, and if I were writing or editing this, I’d go with “fewer.” But I’m not prepared to label “less commercials” a disastrous error.

   Comment by The Big Quiz Thing — 26th November, 2008 @ 12:31 am

6. re: “15 items or fewer”

   Wegman’s Markets uses this same phrase.

   Comment by Andy — 1st December, 2008 @ 1:26 am

7. I think they do it because it flows better and takes a micro-second less air time to say. Advertisers never cared much for proper English.

   Comment by tim maguire — 5th December, 2008 @ 9:51 pm

8. I think if advertisers feel it will sell the product they will use it, if they can get away with it, whether it is grammatically correct or not.

   I’m sure they will also be happy with the complaints and blogs like this one that brings their error into public view, on the basis that bad publicity is good publicity!

   Comment by Claire @ Walkfit Reviews — 30th March, 2011 @ 1:21 am

9. Less is more dramatic than fewer in terms of impact and that is why marketers prefer it even if it is not grammatically correct.

   Comment by Richard Vantage — 30th March, 2011 @ 10:21 pm

10. I don’t think they care so much about perfect grammar, they just want to appeal to as many people as possible. It may sound silly but I think most people would think that Less is the correct word to use in that phrase and so it makes sense to use it. When it comes to advertising you’ve got to know your audience.

    Comment by Mike — 13th April, 2011 @ 12:41 pm

11. A lot of research goes into a marketing campaign like this. A good Marketing Company would have statistics to backup their methods.

    Comment by Trutous — 28th August, 2011 @ 3:06 am

12. I’m not defending them, but I am agreeing with Trutous. The networks and marketing firms are concerned about what works, and they have the funds and the research to back it up.

    That’s too bad for those of us who are concerned with thing which may seem trivial to them.

    - M

    Comment by Merrill — 7th September, 2011 @ 8:17 pm

13. I think today, agencies and marketing firms care less about grammars and sentence structuring… especially in the digital space.

    As long as the ad works, is fine. The problem arises when it don’t work.

    Comment by Jas — 2nd November, 2011 @ 11:44 am

14. I don’t see it as a very big issue.. there are a lot of marketing messages that are not grammatically correct but pull in great responses from the public.

    Some even have wrong spelling.

    Comment by Ian — 2nd November, 2011 @ 12:15 pm

15. I blame the mobile phone. It all started going wrong when people adopted text shorthand.

    Comment by Jason — 8th December, 2011 @ 12:57 am

16. Ha… I remember seeing that and thinking it was not quite right. I mean “more movies less commercials” just does not sound right. I think that they don’t really care though because most of their audience probably doesn’t really notice it but it still just sounds wrong to me.

    Comment by John — 21st January, 2012 @ 9:40 pm

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