Sunday, January 15, 2006

Strange Ads From My Arizona Brochures - Part I

What does it really mean if you're the "Town of Friendly Neighbors" in quotes? Are they actually not really friendly, but pretend to be friendly? Do they act nice most of the time and clap sarcastically when given the chance? And how can "friendly neighbors" be the best tourist feature in your town? And if it is, how does that attract tourists? There are friendly neighbors elsewhere - in most places. I doubt most people have to leave their neighborhood to meet a few friendly neighbors. My friend Steve is a pretty good neighbor. So are the couple to our left and across the street. And come to think of it, if it's a town full of friendly neighbors, how does that do you, the visitor, any good at all? Maybe they're all friendly because they like to band together and do evil things to tourists as a community - some sort of "Children of the Corn" sort of thing (although it's Arizona, so "Children of the Saguaro").

1 comment:

klund said...

Hey, you've hit upon one of my all-time favorite pet peeves - people who use quotes in "the wrong place."

The Yellow Pages seem to be littered with them. Mike's Countryside Body Shop claims "We repair domestic, foreign cars & light trucks.", while their competition, SK Auto Body, offers "Quality work at Reasonable Prices." Either they misunderstand using quotes, or those are two of the worst slogans in automotive advertising today.