Ah, I love home-grown banner ads! The way they have that warm fertilizer smell, and don't burden themselves with the gloss of those suspiciously-perfect, actually-proofread ad company creations.
I love them because then I get to see things go public like this real-and-for-true ad...
He's waisted thousands. And yep, I hear him. It always feels like the thousands go right to the waist, doesn't it? Why, Waist Control Management is rough these days for everybody.
Hey, but it got me thinking what a unique spin this tiny typo can give to a whole lot of things...
- The Who's "Teenage Waistland" turns into the tale of a teen beauty pageant full of girls with eating disorders... (Okay, so, any pageant, then.)
- "Elegantly Waisted" by INXS becomes Michael Hutchence's obsession with a high society ab cruncher...
- And Snoop Dogg's "Waist of Time" relays the story of Snoop's relationship with a slim, female Doctor Who. (Spoilers: it doesn't work out.)
Ah, but our writer of the banner ad isn't talking about dieting, is he? No, he's waisted his thousands on Adwords until he started making money in "3 week." But, he reveals, he doesn't even have a web site!
Um... dude, if you're spending money placing ads on sites that aren't yours? This could very well be the reason you weren't initially seeing the profits. Just tossin' that out there. Next time try placing the ads on a site you own.
I know, business gets confusing that way.
Well, it was about the time I spied our friend with the thick waist, that I found another friend-- Markus, here...
...Markus is "Plentyoffish.com" Which might explain why he's saying how "being single gets kind of old after a while." Girls don't like guys who are plenty offish. They like guys who seem a little interested.
Okay, okay, I know it's Plenty of Fish... I'm just giving Markus a hard time because of his URL, the fact that he seems to have a strong fear of commas, (but has embraced the semi-colon), and that he's the first man to write a full novel in the space of a banner ad.
I really shouldn't poke fun, though. I myself narrowly ended up with blog title that didn't quite work out in URL form the way I'd hoped.
Yes, you might recall me telling the story of "Angela's Shark." The Blog Eventually Named Cabbages was once "Angela's Shark," after a phrase liberally used in one of my favorite P.G. Wodehouse stories.
I thought it was obscure, eccentric and, as my name is not Angela, humorously confusing. Y'know, like the "Thompson Twins" being comprised of three people.... Or "Brazilian Girls" only having one female member.... Pink Floyd having neither a Pink nor Floyd among them.
That sort of thing.
Only as a URL? With no apostrophe allowed, suddenly it turned into:
www.angelasshark.com
Angel Ass Hark...
Ange Lass Hark...
Angela Ssh Ark...
Groovy! A blog either about a heavenly bootie call, a Christian myth about a talking donkey, the speech of some Scottish girl named Angie, or Mrs. Angela Noah being shooshed while her husband droned on about boat-building and the weather.
Needless to say, adjustments had to be made.
Which has me wondering:
- Did you have other candidates for your blog title before the one you settled on, and if so, what were they?
- And what's your favorite (or least favorite) home-grown banner ad?
(I had found another banner in the past that had me laughing-- you can click here to read about that one, in "Beware the Penquins: and Other Cases for Proofreading".)
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26 comments:
I pretty much found the blog title that fit me.
:)
Banner ads with serious spelling errors do make me LOL. While I can't remember any right now, I've come across many. And, yes, the plentyoffish did make me look twice when I first saw it. I grouped it as plenty offish, too. I wondered who wanted to date uninterested or snobby types?
Da Old Man- I LOVE your blog title. Even after all this time, it makes me chuckle. It just really works.
I think it's hysterical that you saw that ad and read it as "Plenty Offish," too.
I was struggling with a name for my blog, then when it suddenly came to be it was so obvious...
Anna- Hey, I do believe you have changed last names on me! And I'm impressed that you've managed to keep the same initials... all that monogrammed luggage of yours will still be good. Clever of you! :)
Hi Jenn!
I started (briefly) with "Inside Mauger's Head" but that was boring and somewhat cliche. My name is not too conducive to punnage, but then I heard "Margaritaville" on the radio and that was the ballgame.
Plenty Offish is how it looked to me, also.
Chris- I like Maugeritaville a lot... It's memorable and lighthearted, plus a little different.
And now that's three votes for "Plenty Offish." So, not quite the kind of thinking a person would quite want with a dating site.
I guess the classic in this field is Pen Island - penisland.com. Of course, in that case it's actually a spoof site. However, there's a supposedly true story about an employee who was fired for looking up answers on Experts Exchange (expertsexchange.com). And then there's Who Represents (whorepresents.com) and Therapist Finder (therapistfinder.com).
As always, a great post, Jenn.
Frank- I'm SO glad you chimed in with those because, honestly, I was trying to come up with good examples like those this morning, and my brain was drawing a blank!
Looking at those above, my takeaway from them is-- sometimes hyphens can be your friend.
This IS a helpful blog.
This sort of deal can happen when you only hear words and names, as well. Before I read LOTR, I only knew of the characters from my girlfriend at the time. And the way she said his name, I thought for the longest time that the main character of The Hobbit was called "Bill Bobaggins".
I only found out differently when I made a joke about "Mr. Bobaggins" and she laughed much harder than the joke's intrinsic humor warranted.
Shawn- AW... Ha, that's awesome. Bill Bobaggins. I believe I will continue to enjoy that now every time Bilbo comes up in conversation. :)
Sorta like my friend who misheard the lyrics to the Heart/Stones lyric, "It's just a kiss away" as "It's just Piscataway." I haven't been able to undo that. :)
Oh, and for other folks wondering why Shawn commented that this was a "really helpful blog"-- I'd eliminated a spammer who decided to sneak in, dub it "helpful" and then linkdrop.
Spam Not the Cabbage.
Plenty Offish beats Plenty Offal. And remember, a waist is a terrible thing to mind. Great post.
Dufus- Well, you have a point there, certainly. Awful Offal would be more like it. :)
At first, I too, was annoyed at the seeming mis-spelling of "oafish", until I added the context (altho it still sort of works for the dating scene, doesn't it?). I do LOVE me some interweb spelling fiascos.
It's always been the Midnight Garden for me, after my habit of going out into the garden in the wee hours with a flashlight to see what was growing and what insects were nom-ing in the garden after dark.
Greg- I guess I was thinking of offish more like "stand-offish," but oafish just adds to the image so well.
I also like your verb "nom-ing." :)
It's funny that now's it URLs. When we kids, it was names. Remember how we joked about Ima Pig and Ura Pig?
Haha!
That's funny about the expertsexchange.com thing. The guys as prosexchange.com actually came to a company where I used to work to demo their site for us. When they opened the floor for questions, I said, "Do you know your URL is Pro Sex Change.com?" He said that they had recently started looking into alternatives.
Reforming Geek- Sure, and Ben Dover? :) We have a lot of fun with him in school, too. :) Yup, it's just one more reasons that the Shakespearean question of "What is in a name?" is answered by, "A LOT. Choose wisely."
Phillip- I don't know how you all managed to sit through the meeting without giggling like nine-year-olds. :) Hopefully, they came up with an alternative that worked a little, er, more professionally.
Reforming Geek's comments about names reminded me of a girl I went to school with. Oh she hated her name and her parents for choosing it, alright! Her name, well it was none other than Anita Dyck. The guys always teased her for her "needs", not nice at all, but so funny!
My son gets teased that he's a Double Dick (he actually started it though), because his name is Richard Thomas. No, I did not name him after John Boy from the Waltons, he was named after his father and Great Grandfather. What I hadn't known was that the English use the word Thomas as another name for the penis, and I hadn't thought of the short form of Richard being Dick, oops, my bad...lol. So he made a joke of it himself before other kids could, thereby stealing their thunder and all they can do is laugh with him, not at him!
So yes, we have to be careful not only in how we name our kids, but also in how we choose names for our blogs. My blog name, why, it just fell from the sky, came out of the blue you could say ;)
Sorry for the long ramble!
I usually agonize over everything, so it's surprising I didn't have ten thousand other title candidates for my blogs and a selection process stained with blood. In reality, though, they just came to me and that was that.
Skye- Oh, Poor Anita. And I actually would have thought of John Boy Walton before I would have "Dick Dick." I would think sharing the name of John Boy would have been burden enough. The "Good night, John Boys" ringing out in the school hallways alone!
Musingwoman- Bloodstains are so HARD to come out of blog headers, too...
I'd vowed with each of my blogs to treat the naming/branding for myself like I would one of my own clients. I figured, I KNEW how to do this, and why wouldn't I try to apply it to my own stuff as well as the work I do for other people.
Turns out, I'm easier to get along with than some of my past clients. :)
So many things here are funny. I used to love the Eye-lean jokes and the bob jokes. Remember those? What kind of nuts have drawers? Chestnuts? Too funny
I named my blog after my mother. She always quoted from "The Mother's Handbook," an imaginary Victorian text which said things like, "If mother is cold, the child must wear a sweater."
Like you, I detest the poor grammar and horrid punctuation and spelling one witnesses on the web.
I am a proud Grammar Nazi, defender of the King's English.
Hola, Jenn...
:D
I've given you the Honest Scrap award. Come check it out here
EttaRose- AH yes, I-Lean and Bob. There are SO many Bob jokes, too. They kept us good and busy when we were kids. :)
The Mother- Heh, I didn't know that, although based on the sweater proverb, I suspect MY mom did. :)
Hola Hammy!- Hey, thank you. Aren't you nice!
Jen I too have an award for you on my blog. :)
EttaRose- Oh, gosh. Thank you! I will have to come see.
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