I continue to be irritated by Priceline’s “Go to your happy price” campaign.
My happy price is $0, thanks. And your ads keep reminding me of that.
(I get that they are riffing off of a combination of "go to your happy place" mentally, plus go to some actual place using our travel services and get low prices—but it still makes no sense, because free will always be ‘happier’ than any other price.)
Heh. I thought the exact same thing.
Seems like me and you will be going to the same happy place!
At least it’s $0
I’m reminded of a time, years ago, when my wife and I were buying a used car and had reached the negotiating on the price stage. The dealer was going over all the payment options, trying to get us to tell him how much we could afford to pay every month so he’d know which loan package to give us, and at one point said, “What can I do to make you drive out of here with this vehicle?” With a perfectly straight face I replied, “You could give it to us for free.”
Don’t leave us hanging! Did he?
He did! It’s like sov cits, but for car dealers. if you know the secret words to use, you get cars for free, The One Secret THEY don’t want you to know!
Or, maybe not…
A commercial for a cosmetic product just played. It said the product would ‘return [your skin, or something] to normalcy.’ I think the word they were looking for is normality.
Unfortunately, no. The look on his face was priceless, though (unlike the car).
He was also not happy that I called him on all the additional fees he tried to add on after we’d finally agreed on a price. Like the ADP fee.
If I googled right, that’a Additional Dealer Profit. So the ADP fee is a fee ‘just because we can charge it.’
Dictionary says they mean exactly the same thing.
But it does sound weird.
At least they didn’t say, “will make you youthful looking again”
The only thing I hate worse than ridiculous claims about products is the word “normalcy”. Also, shouldn’t it be ‘normal’? Also also, what the heck does skin in “normalcy” look like?
Usual.
IOW it does nothing at all.
Yep, that’s the one. They bury it on the list along with anti-rust treatments, prep charges, and bunches of other “mandatory” charges which are actually optional.
Huh. I’ve only heard it in this commercial.
‘Normal’ is an adjective. ‘Normality’ is a noun.
Sentence I saw in the dictionary:
“After a year of tension, he was relieved to be back in a state of normalcy in his life”
Newish ad- a dude being “interviewed” by some woman, with a fake news streaming banner and all, like it is a real News interview- but the whole thing is just a lawyer ad. ecch.
My memory is that Warren G. Harding used “normalcy” in a speech back in the 20s (?), and it stuck.
You remember the 20s? How old are you?
Really old.
But I do read. And sometimes I actually remember what I read!
“Normalcy” is an Americanism, popularized by Warren G. Harding with his 1920 campaign slogan, “Return to normalcy.” At the time critics called it a malopropism. Since then it’s become a normal part of U.S. English.
I’m not doubting that WGH said / popularized it back in the day, but I don’t recall hearing it for most of my life. In my mind, I associate it with some catastrophe -9/11 maybe?- where the news media suddenly started using it a lot. Though I’m not sure which event caused it to be resurrected, I clearly recall it hitting my ear wrong, as it continues to do to this day.