This is from a current print ad campaign for Clear Blue Easy Pregnancy Tests:
1 in 4 women can misread
a traditional pregnancy test.
Read this one.
Oh semantics...semantics, semantics, semantics.
Sure 1 in 4 women can misread a traditional pregnancy test but will 1 in 4 women misread a traditional pregnancy ? Give us women a little more credit.
The word can semantically implies that it is possible but not necessarily so.
A better word choice would have been:
1 in 4 women will misread
a traditional pregnancy test.
or, more simply put:
1 in 4 women misreads
a traditional pregnancy test.
By the way, if Clear Blue Easy's research does not support phrasing the statement in a more definitive way, perhaps they should consider a different approach entirely.
1 comment:
maybe clearblue easy consciously chose the modal 'can' to contrast it with how laughable the possibility of misreading this test would be.
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