Misperceptions

[tealin]

There's a local mall that runs advertising campaigns on bus ads. While I was stopped briefly at a bus shelter, I saw the text at the top of one ad that read 'You have spats, You have makeups, We Have Everything'. This puzzled me ... I knew what spats were (the coverings typically of men's shoes, popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth century) and I knew what makeup was, but why did they pluralise it? Seemed a weird or possibly ESL thing to do. It wasn't until the bus pulled further forward and I saw the picture on the ad, of a young couple apparently enjoying themselves, that it dawned on me I had gotten it all wrong. If I had gotten that advertising copy, I would have done a poster like the one you see above, clearly demonstrating my romantic illiteracy. (But it's a lot funnier ... especially because they probably don't have that kind of spats at the mall.)

I am a costuming geek. Or would be if I knew more about it.

Comments

[peacefuldragon.livejournal.com]

I uh.... I'll just say that it took me 5 minutes of hard thinking and re-reading your post over and over again to figure out what the other possible meaning of "you have spats and makeups" could be. Your fabulous spat drawing drove me to brain-distraction.