Friday, November 20, 2009

2010 Winter Olympics-Bound U.S. Ski Team - Ad Agency Wipes-Out on Word Choice

Just spotted this verb subcatagorization blunder in a magazine ad for the 2010 Winter Olympics-bound U.S. Ski Team.


"Some gates bend, and some just lay down in fear."

To refresh your memory, transitive verbs take objects, intransitive verbs don't. "Lay" is a transitive verb and there is not a direct object following "lay" in this sentence.

In other words, the framework of this sentence, minus the second verb, requires an intransitive verb.

I sure hope the U.S. Ski Team doesn't lay an egg at the Olympics. If they do, I will lie down and cry.

Click here for more on "lay vs. lie".

P.S. In my punctuationally-challenged mind, I think "Vancouver" and "Bound" should be hyphenated.

2 comments:

Lorelei said...

I also don't like the comma after "Ski Team". I read that comma as an "and," which doesn't make sense in that sentence.

Laura Payne said...

Lorelei - "," I agree.

It really is an all-around, poorly written ad.

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