Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-19
AMBIGUOUS LANGUAGE
A COLLECTION OF ABSURDITIES
IN ADVERTISING.
Many Queer Mistakes Caused by the
Desire for Briefness - Our
Own Postal Cards.
From the Pail Mall Gazette.


Advertisers, one may fear, do not take
quite so lofty a view of their obligations
today as when Johnson offered them ad-
vice. Every man." said the photographer,
that advertises his own excellence should
write with some consciousness OF char-
acter which dares to call the attention of
the public. He should remember that the
name Is to stand in the same paper with
those of the King of Prussia and the En-
peror of Germany, and endeavor to make
. himself worthy of such association.
Nowadays, it is true, the two potentates
named by johnson are two single gentle
men rolled into one" and their representa-
tive advertises himself so freely that he
must have q fellow feeling for humber ad-
vertisers. But the principle Is the same,
and one is justified In demanding that even
the advertisement columns OF our newspa-
pers should at least be free from ambiguity;
more than that in the way OF style one can
not demand Yet one does not give 1t.
Fortunately the humorist may profit where
the more practical man is aggrieVed. 1t is
with JOY that one reads such an advertise
ment as appeared two or three days ago in
the Times, even though 1t wells It's excel
lence in foreign tongue: "On demande
bonn Suss Francois pour un enfant
de 10 mois, sachant bien coudre.'
This child, which is announced to be an
accomplished needlewoman at the age of
Miss Linwood or Mrs. Knowles of the
subtle pictures not to be named in the
same breath. Again, in eminent daily
paper, cottage was recently advertised to
let, containing six rooms and two acres
meadow" Its capabilities must have been
similar to those of the famous tent devised
by Peribanou in THE Arabian Nights for
her mortal lover, which would house an
army at need, and yet fold up small
enough to go into its owners pocket. An
other house was described part furnish
ed on easy terms" No doubt the owner
had no intention of saying that one of his
sofas was covered with prickly horsehair,
while another riValed the most oriental d.
van In comfort.
Telegraphic Difficulties.
Antiquities of this kind have long char
acterized the private advertiser, who is
apt to think more of keeping down his bill
than of making himself clear. We all know
the people who send us kilograms, in which
the expenditure of another penny or two
would have cleared up antiquities that
worry for hours in the attempt to de-
eide them. The same people are, no doubt,
responsible for the amusing advertisements
which collectors-who ride hobby cheaper
than bbliomania. and more intellectual
than stamp collectng-have clipped from
newspapers of the past century. A reward
was once offered in print for "a keyless
lady's gold watch" One has a shreWd suS-
picion than the often-quoted green lady's
parasof and brown silk gentleman's UNI
brella'' are but variants of this anecdote
though, on the other hand, 1t is quite posi-
once fallen into the same pit. If we could
decide between these rival theories, how
the mythologiStS who fight over them would
bless us, There is no reason to doubt that
a gentleman who dissented alike from Eng
lish grammar and the Church of England
once desired "a young man to look after a
horse of the Methodist persuasion" that a
wine merchant wished 10 sell six dozen
of prime port wine, late the property of
gentleman forty years of age, full in the
body and with a high bouquet that It
was once possible to buy so interesting
relic as "a mail phaeton, the property of
gentleman with a movable head good as
new In the palmy days of the Saturday
Review there appeared an article making
lengthy fun of piano advertiser in the
Times as the property of a lady leaving
England in remarkably elegant walnut case
on carved supports" The adventurous lady
was compared To Arion on his dolphin, to
the Wise Men of Gotham in their bowl to
Helie on her ram and Europa on her bull;
and. in short, to all the cases of singular
travel that the authors memory could fur
nish The delightful Jumblies of Mr. Lear.
were not included, probably, because, like
the Spanish Armada in Sheridans bur
lesque, they were not then in sight.
A Gruesome Announcement.
rather gruesome advertisement Is that
of the furrier who proclaims himself will
Ing to make up capes circulars, etc, for
ladies out of their own skins" He recalls
the famous republican tannery at Meudon,
whereethe skins of the victims of the gull
lotine were sent for conversion into articles
more useful than aristocrat was con-
sidered to be "in the first Wild years Of
the range of things" One is similarly re-
minded OF a giant with whom Jack the
Giant Killer had to do by the bone crush
ers assurance that parties sending their
own bones to be ground will be attended to
with fidelity and dispatch" Too often we
pass over these things without particular
notice. Our appetite soon gets jaded, and,
as an American writer puts 1t, in hastily
running your eye over the papers you rare
" pause to give Its due need of surprise to
the appetite of lady who wants ito take
q gentleman for breakfast and dinner" the
benevolence of a boarding house keeper
who advertises that single gentlemen are
furnished with pleasant rooms; also one or
two gentlemen. with wives the audaci-
ty of a merchant who in free country
openly gives notice, Wanted woman to
sell on commission" But, indeed, anything
is possible In age where the sign "Fami-
lies supplied by the quart or gallon" meets
you at every turn.
ODD NOMENCLATURE.