Sunday, October 9, 2011

The King

Hello from several tens of thousands of feet above Santa Barbara.

On my way home from <sarcasm> lovely </sarcasm> Ontario, I saw an amusing billboard - amusing to me anyway - heading southbound on the 605 on my way to LAX.

[ Clarification: I was heading southbound, not the billboard. ]

I wouldn't ordinarily notice (or care about) a Budweiser sign, but I couldn't possibly miss the gargantuan slogan screaming out at the drivers passing by.

I wanted to snap a picture of the billboard, but reaching back into the trunk area while driving wasn't an option. So I went online in the Red Carpet club before my flight and did some hasty googling in the hopes someone had posted a picture of the billboard. Didn't find one, but I did find this:


"The King Never Looked So Good." If you watched the boob tube as much as I did growing up, you'd immediately get the "King" reference. If your memory needed at little jogging, the accompanying pictures of the (apparently) new Budweiser cans would do the trick.

My immediate reaction to the slogan was, "They're absolutely right!"

I imagine that the designers of this new can would be pleased by my reaction… so long as they didn't know me.

For those of you who do know me, you might have noticed that I'm a bit of a stickler (aka. pain in the ass) about language. Majoring in Linguistics only made it worse. One of the things about language that amuses and intellectually stimulates me is ambiguity.

Some folks are the "life of the party." Me, I'm the guy you want around at the end of the party. I'm the perpetual designated driver. I don't drink (never have), so my immediate interpretation of "The King Never Looked So Good" was they're right, drinking Budweiser has never looked like a good idea to me. Beer smells disgusting. Why would I want to drink it?

Let's hear it for truth in advertising!

I can see SFO off in the distance, so I need to go for now.

1 comment:

  1. I'm kind of a Word Nerd myself, so I totally get this. While I appreciate it, you are right in noticing that PLU can be considered pains in the collective asses. What I tell my friends when they give me the stink-eye after I point something they've said out as a grammatical mistake, is, "To me, bad grammar or mispronunciation is like a visible booger in your nose. What kind of friend would I be if I let you continue through life with the verbal equivalent of a hanging boog?" I would certainly want to be told!! Is there a worse feeling in the world than leaving your friend's presence and hopping in your car, catching a glance of yourself in the rear-view mirror sporting a visible nose goblin? I think not!! It seriously makes me question that friendship. Rant over. Nikki out. ;)

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