Laying Down the Law

Today is National Grammar Day, my excuse to grouse about companies that don’t know the difference between lay and lie. (As if I needed an excuse.) A while ago I aired my grievance about the Hanes Lay-Flat Collar¹. My newest peeve: the Back2Life, which likewise can’t distinguish past from present.

 

Spotted at Costco by my brother Michael.

 

 

I have no idea whether this thing works because I’m unwilling to shell out $150 for a product whose manufacturer² is unwilling to invest in proofreading.

What’s even more maddening is that the Back2Life website has it both ways: the correct “just lie back” and the incorrect “simply lay back” on the home page video; “just lie back” in Dr. Darrow’s video; and “just lay back” on the FAQ and What You Get pages.

And yes, there should be a hyphen between “12” and “Minute” to create a compound adjective. The hyphen is there—sometimes—on the website. (Will someone please find a proofreader for this company?)

Why should anyone care? I’ll tell you why: Because details matter. If you don’t deliver professionally edited communications, maybe you don’t deliver a quality-checked product or service, either.

It’s nice to know I’m not ranting into a void:

 

Candorville, Feb. 26, 2011. Click to embiggen. (Thanks, Michael!)

 

 

Read about another lay/lie infraction here. 

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¹ I regret to inform you that the curse of the “lay-flat collar” has spread beyond men’s T-shirts. Just the other day I beheld, to my dismay, this copy for the Three Dots Heavy Weight [sic] Cotton Trench on the Zappos website:

² Yes, “whose” is correct. Read all about it at Visual Thesaurus (another reason to subscribe!). See also Jan Freeman’s comments about “whose” on her fine blog, Throw Grammar from the Train.

Comments

[richard howland-bolton]

Not to get all advocatus-diabolical here, but is it at all possible that the Three Dots collar you are getting shirty about is one that a wearer can lay flat in perfect transitivity as an alternative to turning it up 'gainst the weather.
:-)

[Jessica]

I know you must've addressed the everyday (adjective) v. every day (adverb) confusion before, but it continues to drive me bonkers. And this detail really does matter, as you say.