Mood: lyrical
Topic: Rants
I love Philosophy bath products, as I've mentioned a number of times, but the psychobabble they print on their packaging just irritates the hell out of me. The obvious solution, as some have pointed out, is to just enjoy the products and not read that drivel. But sometimes it has a way of assaulting you.
This morning I was in the shower when this phrase on the bottle of Amazing Grace body scrub clobbered me right between the eyes: it is the person who has let theirself out and the spirit in. I started howling out loud. Theirself? No, no, and -- in a word -- NO.
I can just see the Philosophy marketing department sweating that one out; I'm reminded of the Golgafrinchan Colonisation Meeting scene from the Hitchhiker's Guide books.
Marketing Person 1: But theirself isn't proper English. It should be himself.
Marketing Person 2: But ninety-mumble percent of our target demographic is female! If we say himself, we'll alienate our market. How about herself?
Marketing Person 3: But our product isn't just for women! [Note: The particular product in question not only smells like flowers but is also actually pink.] What about our male demographic? No, we can't specify a gender. It has to be theirself. You know, as in their self. Like in a spiritual sense.
And so on in this vein, despite the obvious fact that anyone with a penis who uses Amazing Grace body scrub has gender issues which far overreach the question of pronouns. Until, their little marketing-person heads in a whirl, they settled on theirself. Who said the three-martini lunch is a thing of the past? If we are to judge by the prose generated by the Philosophy marketing department, it's very much alive and well.
I shouldn't even get myself started on people who choose to express themselves through written media, yet have no grasp of proper grammar, punctuation or spelling. My husband tells of a former girlfriend of his who held a B.A. in English from UCLA and purported to write free-lance screenplays (Ben graduated from Beverly Hills High, and his past is rife with showbiz wannabes), yet peppered said works with such phrases as should have went. When my future husband, who as we've established is a prick of the highest order, offered to teach her to conjugate the verb to go, I'm told she retorted that such things are unimportant; it's the feelings that matter.
That may be so. But what good are feelings if the one feeling them can't make theirself understood in writing? I know there are those out there who know the importance of crafting the written word, who know exactly what I mean.
Posted by Gretchen
at 3:36 PM PDT
Updated: Monday, May 23, 2005 9:49 AM PDT