’Tis-the-Season season came early this year! Why, ’twasn’t even Halloween when Saks Fifth Avenue gave us “’tis the treating hour” in a New York Times ad .
Page A5, October 29.
A Gap ad featured that perennial holiday garnish: the wrong-way apostrophe.
November 16.
Marine Layer, an aggressively casual* clothing company based in San Francisco, must really love this archaism: It ’tisses twice in its holiday catalog.
Page 19. Yes, that’s a backward apostrophe.
Page 34. And hey, if we’re being honest, that’s another backward apostrophe.
’Tis the season to be dazzled at Disneyland. Or is it ‘Tisneyland?
Billboard, Bay Street near Columbus Avenue, San Francisco.
And here is your annual reminder about holiday clichés from Baltimore Sun night editor John McIntyre:
“’Tis the season”: Not in copy, not in headlines, not at all. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER. You cannot make this fresh. Do not attempt it.
Not in advertising copy, either. (In my dreams.)
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* From the Our Story page: “We opened up our first store about a year later and then bought this old bus to move our shirts from Xiao’s to the store. Since then we’ve gotten a bunch of friends to quit their real jobs and help us make some more shirts and open up a few more stores in some places we like to visit. Except for Burlingame. We opened a shop there and closed that shit down fast.”
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I know I'm a rant-prone hyper-critical linguist but stuff like this JUST. MAKES. ME. WANT. TO. SCREAM.
Posted by: tanita | November 25, 2015 at 08:58 AM
Chico's too. A 'tis and an "all the fixings."
Posted by: Andrea Behr | November 25, 2015 at 12:09 PM