I (don’t) know where to use parentheses

Posted 1 Feb 2012

Daily Life, Language, Signs | 1 Comment 

Seen on an advertisement card found in magazines. At first glance, a misuse of parentheses.

Maybe there’s some hidden subtext? The sentence without the parentheses reads “The most culture can buy”. Maybe the authors are hinting that there’s no point being cultured because all you get is a subscription to “Cheap Eats”.

As an (interesting) aside of (useless) trivia, these advertisement cards are called “blow-in” cards because they are blown in to magazines.

189 times too many

Posted 26 Jan 2012

Events, Language, People, Places | 1 Comment 

A 50% discount on a jacuzzi room, with a king size bed, roses, buffet, and an incredibly romantic evening at one of the local area hotels.

This is where Groupon fails. I do NOT want to know that there are 189 other couples about to have the same experience.

What is OUR cat and OUR bag?

Posted 23 Jan 2012

Animals, Language | 1 Comment 

As we prepared our birthday celebrations around the ChickenMonkeyDog offices, we did our best to keep the gift give-away contests under our hats, and the phrase “don’t let the cat out of the bag” was thrown around.

While we are generally fans of that phrase, for a site named chickenmonkeydog, the phrase “let the cat out of the bag” seems ill matched.

Can you help us think of a more appropriate phrase which means the same thing, for us to use around chickenmonkeydog?

¿Preguntas o Comentarios?

Posted 17 Jan 2012

Daily Life, Food, Language | 4 Comments 

Para contactar Kellogg’s con preguntas o comentarios acerca de los Corn Flakes por favor llama por teléfono. Tus comentarios escritos en Español no pueden ser leídos, pero con gusto te atenderán por teléfono en tu idioma.

The convergence of happiness and unihappiness

Posted 6 Jan 2012

Daily Life, Language, The Little Things | 8 Comments 

As you can see in the diagram above, we’re seeking input on what we should call the convergence of happiness and unhappiness. What would you call the overlap of these two opposites?