50 Cent...Whatever

Well, leave it to the rap world to break the most simplest of grammatical rules. Not real shocked by this one for obvious reasons. There is really nothing extra to say about this one. It's an obvious comma splice. You would figure someone would have caught this but who cares right? If I had made a hundred million off Vitamin Water, I wouldn't give a damn either...

You, Happier, I guess?

So Best Buy just ran an ad with the trademarked tag: You, Happier.

Now there seems to be alot wrong with this sentence. At first, I wasn't sure if this was a comma splice because I'm not sure if You or Happier can be a sentence on its own. If they can't stand alone then I guess it's not a comma splice because it's already grammatically incorrect.

But even if it ISN'T a comma splice, why is Happier capitalized? They would have been much better off leaving off punctuation all together.

I love my state but...

So I guess this first entry doesn't have much to do with advertising per say but it's still a blatant disregard of grammatical integrity.

I was looking on the back of my car registration sticker and this jumped out at me:

Check the date, love your state

This my friends, is the epitome of a comma splice. I'm not sure what they were thinking when they printed millions of these but I do know this: they must have been pretty proud of it. I say that because the saying is actually trademarked. So this actually ran across several people's desks and every one of them thought it sounded good. And I'm sure the people who made this decision make a a lot more money than us.

Frustrating, I know. But this is the grammatically incorrect world that we now live in...

Welcome

This blog examines an extremely common, but glaring mistake in many advertising campaigns: the comma splice.

First a quick definition:
Comma splice - the incorrect use of a comma instead of a conjunction to link two independent clauses

I don't know much about anything but I do know a comma splice when I see one. It is a growing problem and I, for one, won't stand for it anymore. I'll use this blog as my forum to destroy the comma splice and everything it stands for.

A little about me
I feel somewhat confident in my ability to maintain this blog. I have a Bachelors and Masters in English so I feel I know a little bit about grammar. I'm no expert but I do know glaring errors when I see them.