The Destruction of Our Favorite Things

I had a classmate in journalism school who wrote an entire essay on songs that were ruined for him after starting our magazine editing class. Needless to say, it was a big hit (pun intended). We weren’t talking about the fun spin on lyrics or purposeful slang terms, like “Ain’t No Sunshine.” This was the sneakier side of things that well-intentioned songwriters probably didn’t even realize, like, “Push it real good” (sorry, Salt N Pepa) or “Who ya gonna call?” (sorry, Ray Parker, Jr.). Of course, “Push it really well” and “Whom are you going to call?” just don’t have the same ring to them.

The internet is now rife with articles, Reddit threads and blog posts debating the merits of some of our favorite tunes. I’ll bet just about any of them can be considered ruined.

Pivot: Several years ago, the organization I worked for (and loved) pushed a giant ad campaign with the most egregious grammatical error I’d seen for such a large company. I won’t call it out specifically, but let’s just say it was akin to “Sleep peaceful.” It was a directive for people to do something, with a two-word charge that appeared as a verb followed by an adjective, when it should have read, “Sleep peacefully” (verb followed by an adverb).

They debuted this horrific slogan at an all-hands meeting and printed it on t-shirts they encouraged us to wear at company functions. I couldn’t do it. Being a rule follower, I kept it – until the campaign fizzled out, thankfully – but have also never been so happy to donate something to Goodwill. My faith in the company’s larger parent organization who pushed this campaign had been forever ruined.

Why is any of this important? It’s not, really… unless you’re someone who loses sleep over these things. But if you’re even remotely contemplating putting something in print and blasting it on billboards and in tv ads, I beg you to consult with a copyeditor – or at the very least, run it by a focus group. And hint: if you need help, give me a shout! 😊