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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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Nivea, your grammar stinks!

Advertisments, The List, grammar, wrong word

Posted by Gez on 23rd March, 2009

Glenda Young brought this Nivea advert to our attention. It gives me two major causes for concern.

Who Would OF Thought?!, originally uploaded by cormac70.

Firstly, writing ‘of’ instead of ‘have’ is unforgivable. It never ceases to amaze me how these mistakes see the light of day. Does nobody proofread anymore?

Secondly, the reason silver salts are antibacterial is that they are quite poisonous and corrosive. If Nivea are indeed putting silver ions in their deodorant at a concentration high enough to kill bacteria, I wouldn’t want to spray it onto my skin.

One for Ben Goldacre perhaps?

Have a look at Glenda’s blog Flaming Nora for her views on this matter.

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12 Comments »

1. “Does nobody proofread anymore?”

   Not “nobody,” but in many cases, yes, people do not proofread anymore. It’s becoming less and less of a priority, especially on the Web. This copy is flawless compared with some other ads I’ve seen lately.

   Comment by TrivTriv — 23rd March, 2009 @ 4:30 pm

2. “Secondly, the reason silver salts are antibacterial is that they are quite poisonous and corrosive. If Nivea are indeed putting silver ions in their deodorant at a concentration high enough to kill bacteria, I wouldn’t want to spray it onto my skin.”

   Well, that’s not entirely fair, silver is specifically toxic to microorganisms because it ISN’T corrosive (and doesn’t corrode) and because of the size range of nanoparticles silver can form in solution.

   Silver is one of the few metals that humans can ingest (or imbibe, absorb, etc.) significant amounts of without causing significant harm.

   Spot on with the grammar, though.

   Comment by henry T-R — 25th March, 2009 @ 4:21 am

3. “Does nobody proofread anymore?”

   Surely you mean “Doesn’t anybody proofread anymore?”

   

   Comment by Dan — 25th March, 2009 @ 3:33 pm

4. Thanks for the science lesson, Henry. I was always under the impression that silver salts were corrosive. The example used in my A level chemistry (admittedly a long time ago) was that of babies having AgNO3 dropped into their eyes. Although a successful disinfectant, some babies, if over treated, became blind.

   Thinking about it now though, it’s probably the “nitrate” bit that makes silver nitrate corrosive. Must do more research.

   Dan, I know what I mean (usually).

   Comment by Gez — 25th March, 2009 @ 5:28 pm

5. I love seeing this. It fuels my mission to discover where the proofreaders of the world have gone to hide.

   Seriously – we can’t continue to rely on spellcheck everyone!

   Comment by Athena — 26th March, 2009 @ 2:14 pm

6. I believe they are trying to be colloquial. I imagine someone changed “have” to “of”.

   Comment by Cass — 7th April, 2009 @ 5:35 am

7. Ha ha, I have silver nitrate-stained hands right now, so it was amusing reading this article! I’m certainly glad it’s not that corrosive, otherwise I would have little black colored lesions all over my hands!

   Comment by Abby P — 9th April, 2009 @ 1:19 am

8. http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/SI/silver_nitrate.html

   “Poisonous. Causes burns. Long-term exposure can cause permanent blue-grey staining of eyes, mouth, throat and skin, (argyria) and may cause eye damage. Short contact can lead to deposition of black silver stains on the skin. Very destructive of mucous membranes. Skin and eye irritant. Experimental equivocal tumorigenic agent.”

   Not my words, Abby. The words of the Oxford University Chemistry department.

   Comment by Gez — 9th April, 2009 @ 5:41 am

9. I love irony. You choose to attack this Nivea ad, yet in the process, you commit an “unforgivable” grammatical error. Nivea is one company, not many. It’s singular. Singular nouns are accompanied by “is,” not “are.” It’s a little thing called subject verb agreement. So, your pissing and moaning should read “If Nivea is indeed…,” not “If Nivea are indeed…” I imagine this mistake showed up in their ad after they hired an arrogant illiterate, like you, to proofread it.

   Comment by Duke — 7th May, 2009 @ 6:03 am

10. Duke, I admire your dogged commitment to grammar, believe me. I also to some extent admire your aggressive stance toward perceived mistakes. Yet does one mistake an illiterate make?

    You seem to be under the impression that companies, boards and groups of people collectively should be treated as a single entity at all times.

    You’re half right. Which makes you also half wrong. Which by your own high standards would make you semi-literate.

    I’m guessing you’re from the USA. I say this only because a strict rule of treating collective nouns and groups as singular is generally adhered to by speakers of Microsoft US English.

    Here in the UK we recognise the incongruity of speaking about groups of people as though they were one entity. Do the people all act as one, like a swarm? Can the entity itself realistically be described doing things for which the humans within it are responsible? It’s not easy and to force a rule without regarding context and common sense can make one’s sentences rather, well, forced.

    In your comment, you inadvertently highlight the problems encountered when treating companies as single entities. I had to chuckle when I saw the following statement, hidden between the many layers of ‘irony’.

    “I imagine this mistake showed up in their ad after they hired…”

    You are, at this point, still referring to Nivea the single company and yet you use the plural pronoun and possessive in exactly the same way I did.

    You’ll be glad to know that doing so doesn’t make you illiterate, merely a boorish hypocrite.

    Your homework assignment is to read the following articles from people much cleverer and more knowledgeable than you or me. Especially you.

    http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/collplural.html

    http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/collective-nouns.aspx

    http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-who-that.aspx

    http://www.bartleby.com/68/46/246.html

    Comment by Gez — 8th May, 2009 @ 5:17 pm

11. Well played, Gez. I definitely got caught being the prick on this one. My apologies for my arrogance and my ignorance of global differences within English. I did read the links you posted. They were really informative and I appreciate the guidance. Thank you.
    Sincerely,
    One Boorish Hypocrite

    Comment by Duke — 9th May, 2009 @ 7:33 am

12. Your apology is appreciated but entirely unnnecessary. I hope you continue to read and enjoy the blog.

    I’ll try to write more posts on matters such as this to break up the schadenfreude.

    Comment by Gez — 9th May, 2009 @ 10:00 am

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