On 6/28/06, mike scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
And it subsequently refers to "Bryan Garner, whose Dictionary of Modern American Usage...". I'm talking about /English/ not "American". They are different, and what's acceptable in one may not be in the other. As far as I can tell, it's a usage that's been catching on over here just in the past /few/ years - it is /not/ correct usage. Yet.
http://homepage.mac.com/bhorst/ Last I checked, New York City is in America. New York City is where the oringial ad (the one the OP said is not working) is being used. The fact that Mount Rushmore, (you know, the mountian with 4 American Presidents faces carved into it) and Independence (you know, like American Independence from England) are used in the original ad kinda backs up the idea that it's okay to "talk American". "obtain OOo free" or "obtain OOo for nothing" (*). Please?? Yes, get OpenOffice.org for nothing is a lot better than for free. Oops, I'm sorry - that was an American thing we do sometimes call sarcasm. When I hear "for nothing" the word I put in front of it is "good" as in "Good for nothing". You do not want to use the word "nothing" in your advertisement. It's a negative word. "Free" on the other hand is a very positive one. I wasn't intending to start a major "style war". But if I see adverts
with incorrect language, then I tend to think twice about using the product, and I doubt whether I'm alone - advertising works both ways.
So you're saying that the ad might not appeal to anal nit-pickers from England. okay. Where as changing it to "Get OOo for nothing" is going to sound to a large number of people like "Get this thing for no reason." Hmmm, I wonder which is a better ad? (As a slightly relevant aside. A telecoms company wanted to show it was
a field leader. It paid a fortune to an advertising company for the slogan "the name behind tomorrow". Didn't last long - either slogan or company :-) Advertising really /does/ matter.)
yes *ADVERTISING* matters - not the Queen's English. If "For Free" was such a turn off to customers, marketing execs would have stopped using it by now. But the fact that "for free" and the reduntant "Free Gift" are still used all the time proves that grammar is no way to judge the effectiveness of an ad. -- - Chad Smith http://www.gimpshop.net/ http://www.whatisopenoffice.org/ http://www.chadwsmith.com/
