Language Cops, case file# 9807: Culturally Irrelevant Description

October 23, 2008 • 1:59 pm • POSTED BY bradley

The Language Cops are once again on the beat, and it’s time to flip on the flashing cherries and issue our latest perp a citation.

Today’s Offender: GQ Magazine

Offense: Using a culturally irrelevant description

Time and Place: November 2008 issue, page 62, “Project Upgrade: Why Casual Doesn’t Have to Mean Schlumpy”

Details of offense: Subject wrote, “But what Nosewicz and a lot of guys don’t realize is that you can dress down — and feel comfortable — without looking like you’re camping out for Radiohead tickets.” [Language Cop's emphasis]

It’s a sentence like this that compels a Language Cop sidle up next to the offender’s laptop, ask her to turn down the iTunes and after slowly removing his Ray Ban aviators, say, “Excuse me, ma’am, did you know how lazy you were writing before I stopped you?”

If you are reading this, it’s because you are using a fantastic invention called The Internet, the very same invention that, along with the, um, telephone and those increasingly rare — and cruel — pre-sale wristband lotteries, has made camping out for concert tickets an obsolete activity for at least a solid decade.

While I can understand that the reference won’t necessarily be lost on the magazine’s readership — many of whom, myself included, have fond memories of camping out for seats — you simply can’t describe an activity in the present tense when it has not been legitimately practiced since a Democrat was in the White House (during his first term, no less). It’s lackluster. Worse, it’s just plain wrong.

Hope you enjoyed the rant. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to program my Betamax.