A friendly reader sent me this lovely quote from a promotional email for an e-commerce company.
“Using the Intelligent Energy-Saving 6-Way Mains Panel prevents wasted energy and can save you between an impressive £100 up to an astonishing £700 over the panel’s estimated 15-year minimum lifespan – and is recommended by PC Pro and the Energy Saving Trust.
This energy-efficient 6-way mains panel even comes fully equipped with a power surge protector which can wreck an entire system and prove very costly, as well as a phone/modem splitter to make your life even easier.”
So, they want us to spend £24.95 to buy a product that will wreck an entire system and prove very costly. Yeah, right!
Writing lesson: proofread web copy.
Related posts on this blog: Why good writers (occasionally) produce bad copy?
Related posts:
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I know I’m completely missing the point here, but this is an interesting product. In these days of global warming and carbon footprints, I was astonished to find neither my new TV nor digibox has an ‘off’ button – only a standby mode. Maybe I could cut my bills a little with one of these. (Ok, so I could just bend down and just unplug the things, but that wouldn’t give me an excuse to buy a new gadget.)
sloppy proofing or frighteningly effective viral marketing…?
We’re guessing that they don’t have an editor on staff. Any good editor worth his or her salt should find such a blatant content problem and point it out to the writer.
Relying on a word processor’s grammar checker won’t help the writer find this problem with missing words.
Another problem with this same text (since we’re being critical): “between an impressive £100 up to an astonishing £700″. “Between” and “up to” are both incomplete comparisons. “Between this and that” or “This up to that” are fine, but this text is mixing phrases and creating incomplete comparisons (like: “never put your eggs before the horse”). Again-probably no editor on staff. Replacing the words “up to” with “and” would solve this problem.