Tuesday, October 23, 2012

A new billboard...

But it still says the same thing!

I wrote a bit about this before and was driving through South County when I saw a new billboard off of Lindbergh and saw the same thing.  What I am of course complaining about is the newest exercise location in St. Louis: Xist.

While perusing Facebook this past weekend, my wife pointed something out to me:

We live in a day and age when it is somehow accepted for people to write as if they were a small child, completely ignorant of proper spelling and grammar and syntax.  Really, do we really need to spell words like this: "L33T" or "gr8" or even "ax"?  There is a large assortment of people who even send off emails written so badly that even my 4 year old could spell some of these words better.  So, does this bother you?  Well, guess where this leads to....

{
I have an idea, let us come up with a gym, the most coolest place in St. Louis for cool guys and hot girls to come and work out.  And since the current trend is to start all of your words, names and phrases with an "X", let us use an X in front of the name.  Let us think of something catchy....maybe we can appeal to everyone's human nature and their questions relating to their very existence and what their purpose in life is?  I know, let's called the gym: Existence.  Even better, let us call it "Xist".
}

The above is probably one of the most stupid things anyone in this area came up with.  I'm sure you have seen the below name, somewhere, on any billboard in St. Louis, but there is a problem.


The above word, is not pronounced "exist".  I'm sorry but for anyone who thinks this, you obviously do not have English as your first language.  They wanted this word to be pronounced as "X-ist".  This is how it should have looked everywhere.  The way that this is shown, is pronounced "S-ist".  So, you want to know something comical?  Do you know how you pronounce that word?  It is Xist, as in "Cyst" or "Sist".  It is not "ex-ist" as the makers wanted it to be.  Think of other words that follow this example: Xloid, Xenophobic or even Xeme.  When an "X" is the first letter of these words, it takes on the sounds of a "Z".  It is not an "ex" sound and then the rest of the word.  Check this out:  http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=xist&submit=Submit

That above link does the correct pronunciation for words and in this case, just as I mentioned, the name of this fitness area is "sist".  I don't think that the company thought of their gym as being named after a medical item, that isn't a pleasant one.  Or maybe the owners of this gym didn't bother to think.  Here is the thing: if they wanted it to be pronounced like "exist" then they would have had entered a hyphen between the "X" and the rest of the word.  Then it would have been "X-ist" and pronounced that way not like "sist".  This just proves that you don't need a college degree to do the marketing or run a business.  I love driving by this billboard on the road and seeing the rest of the sign: Don't just exist; Xist.  Don't just exist, become a cyst?  Really?

Let me think of other great examples:  um....when someone asks what time it is, do you answer them by saying that it is "nine oclock" or "nine o'clock"?  I would guess that one is actually pronounced as "o-clok" and the other is pronounced as "ah-clok".  I know it may not seem that much now, but wait till your boss tells you that he will give you a raise at "nine oclock" and you can't understand what an "aclok" is.

To the marketing people who are have failed 1st grade spelling and reading, change the name or stick a hyphen in there.


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