PlazaJen: Passion Knit

Sometimes I think advertising copywriting has to be the funniest job in the universe. I thought about doing it, but I'm too sensitive to criticism on things that I make/do/create, I'd get fired for crying on the job, probably. So, hey, why not have a blog on the internet where trolls could ridicule me? (paroxysms of laughter. hoping the trolls have to look that word up & then forget where they were and go live under somebody else's bridge.) Anyhoo, that was the first thing I heard on the radio when I got back to my desk after lunch and I thought, "Hm. Beef really doesn't remind ME of the Good Old Days, but I'll file that under "Curious" and meanwhile it kinda makes me laugh."

The Lovely Miss K and I went to Westport CoffeeHouse at lunch today, to eat paninis and drink beverages & work on our sock knitting. It was only 211 degrees in there, so my blood did not actually boil, but my cafe latte stayed hot a lot longer than say, a place with the heat set at 85 degrees. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not like the heat so much. My office is often referred to as the "meat locker". I justify the cooler temperatures by saying I would fall asleep if it were warmer. That said, I would have been in a coma if we'd stayed at WCH any longer. What cracked me up, prior to going there, is that I did some research online to ascertain that they did, in fact, serve lunch-type food. Not that I'm opposed to eating cheesecake and drinking coffee for lunch, but that makes for a bad scene around 3:00 in the afternoon, and if you've read any of my Shopping-at-Costco-Hungry posts, you have an inkling of what sort of behomoth fat crazy wonker lady I turn into with the blood sugar crash. So yay! They serve cold sammiches AND paninis. They even state on their website, the cold sammiches are served on "Baggett".

I messaged Kristin: "I am still deciding if we can go there, they don't know how to spell 'baguette'. And they have pronunciation guides for 'panini' and 'focacia', which they did spell correctly."

Oh yes, I did. I am that much of a snob. And I justify my snobbiness because I LOOK EVERYTHING UP. See, I'm not saying I'm one of those people who automatically knows how to spell everything? I do know how to spell a LOT of things, mainly because I went to the state competition in 8th grade and it turned into something that was a little more important to my father than to me, so I went out on "leucite", but still, I made it really far, and my dad was so disappointed he didn't speak to me the whole 7 hour ride home, but I don't think that scarred me, do you? (I've forgiven him. Don't you hold a grudge now. They'll eat you UP!)

Anyway, if I'm not sure about a word, spelling or definition, I ALWAYS double-check. Dictionary.com and M-W.com are my friends. And I know I have typos here and there, but I proofread like a freakazoid and try my darndest to catch 'em. And I think, much like my earlier post this week, if you're going to spend money and time promoting yourself, your business, have information on a website, or have it ENGRAVED INTO PLASTIC, then you damn well better be sure you're spelling everything correctly, not to mention you haven't thrown some extra apostrophes in for good measure. ACK! Don't get me started on apostrophes. People are afraid of the apostrophe. They think if an "s" is on a word, then let's be safe and put an apostrophe in there. Oooooooooh, drives me nuts. I used to correct my high school teachers' spelling and punctuation all the time. ALL THE TIME. It did not endear me to them. (shocking!)

So while we were there, a man came in and was trying to figure out what to order. Apparently a coffeehouse virgin, he was. He had no clue! So the barista CORRECTED HIS PRONUNCIATION of something and Kristin and I exchanged looks. As in, WHOA, they ARE crazy about this here! Then the man eventually sat near us and this must have been his first day in the Big City, as evidenced by his inability to drink his beverage without copious amounts of SLURPING. It was borderline insane. Like he's got to be belching by now from all the air intake. Which is probably Russian for "Good Coffee", where he's from, but still. I freak out if I slurp the bottom of a glass with my straw, I can almost see my parents' glares in my memory-eye. (note proper apostrophe usage!) (My dad would burp after dinner and say, "That's Russian for 'Good meal'!")

Anyway, all this bally-hoo about pronunciation reminded me of a coffee house I used to frequent in Minneapolis - they served ice cream and pastries, and had the the snottiest staff EVER. For, if you ever pronounced anything incorrectly, they would arch their eyebrows at you and correct you. You, the customer. My ex-boyfriend took great delight in this, and was always ordering (sounds like) "One Croyzunt, to go". And they would nearly fall down in SnobPain, eyebrow twitching, as they haughtily replied, "It's pronounced KrwaSAN".

It strikes me, as far as the written word, I'm just as bad as them and probably twice as haughty. The difference is I'm more entertained by it all.