John Punched the Lion

There is a commercial that they read on NPR every once in a while for some kind of agency or bureau to encourage people to bring their businesses to Florida. I'm not sure if it only goes out on my local NPR station or if it's part of the nationwide broadcast that all of you hear¹. Today, after hearing it a million times, I finally wrote it down. If I transcribed it correctly (which I believe I did, thank you very much), it ends,

"... helping businesses locate, expand and set up in Florida."

What is the state of the American educational system if we have to have a whole bureau dedicated to helping people locate Florida? It's right down there, dangling into the Gulf of Mexico! Ponce de Leon found it by accident! I am also not really clear on whether they help businesses expand in Florida, or expand Florida itself.

(Life is really hard to parse when you are as horribly horribly nit-picky and literal as I am.)

¹ This is a beef I have with NPR. I am not always sure what is local and what isn't. I guess I just need to get to know my radio personalities better, but my station isn't helping by listing all of their on-air personalities and staff together.

srah - Thursday, 1 May 2008 - 12:24 PM
Tags: ,


Comments (3)

gravatar Jess - May 1, 2008 - 12:39 PM -

I am that way too. It's part of my job to make sure that sentences actually say what their authors are trying to imply. It's amazing how often they don't.

gravatar Noor - May 1, 2008 - 2:59 PM -

i have issues with the order of things - how do you expand if you haven't even setup yet?

gravatar srah - May 1, 2008 - 3:07 PM -

Hmmm... I think my brain allowed for that by assuming that they were Ohio businesses who would be relocating to Florida (Stinking Florida! We need those jobs here!).

Blog Directory - Blogged