Words: You’re Doing Them Wrong

I grabbed the New Westminster NewsLeader yesterday and skimmed through it while I ate lunch. I have made an uneasy peace with the free, local papers; they are, after all, free and community-driven and occasionally informative (though local blog Tenth to the Fraser is more consistently informative.) The best part of the local free paper is the letters to the editor page because sometimes I know the people who write in and sometimes I just wish I did and sometimes I cut out the letters that are especially, erm, off the wall and out in left field and deep in space, to put it kindly, and put those letters in a special scrapbook for sad or angry days when I need a little pick-me-up; sort of a mood-enhancing-drug kind of scrapbook…oh, I have said too much.

In the weekend paper, between the articles about local celebrities and city council opening new Pharmasaves and actual news about the city, there was an advertising supplement. Actually the advertising supplement is the bread, if you will, around the sandwich filling that is four hundred flyers for businesses, so it is advertising around advertising surrounded by advertising – again, not a surprise.

Because it was the first weekend in May, the advertising supplement was about Mother’s Day next week. There were ads for spa packages and two-for-one naan bread and free yoga classes and book ideas for your mother / A Mother / Every Mother. And tucked in between these ads, there were articles.

(Are they considered articles if they don’t advertise anything but they also serve absolutely no purpose except to break up the advertisements? Are they articles if there is no byline? Is there another name for them?)

I will retype one in its entirety because a) there is no one to credit with its creation and b) someone has to explain this to me.

“Yoga Moms Have Pushed Soccer Moms to the Sidelines,” reads the headline.

Many women are trading in their team jerseys for yoga mats. The busy soccer mom has transformed into the calm and ethereal yoga mom who is more interested in a stress free life than racing around to sports practices.

For a long time the stereotypical image of a mom was a minivan-driving, 40-something picking up Timmy from sports practice and Jenny from cheerleading. Her fast-paced lifestyle had her racing between kids’ engagements to home to other social obligations in a harried, time-pressed manner.

But today you’re more likely to see mom practicing her asanas instead of toting clipboards and team snacks. She’s scooting around in her Toyota Prius instead of the Dodge Caravan and is more about living in the moment than over-programming children with music lessons and enrichment classes.

Today’s moms are more free-spirited and learn-as-you-go types. They don’t strive for the same goals as their mothers before them. Instead of keeping up with the Joneses and striving for perfection, the Yoga Mom or Eco Mom is customizing her life the way she sees fit.

So what else is different about women of the Yoga Mom mind set? A lot actually. That isn’t to say today’s moms are sitting on the couch catching up with daytime programming. They are certainly educated, successful women. They’re simply putting their needs on par with the needs of their family and feeling better about themselves in the process.

1. Who wrote this? It doesn’t say anywhere who wrote this. Someone wrote it. Words just don’t APPEAR from thin air on computers and then get printed, right? Was it the yoga studio who bought an ad further down the page? Was it the person whose job it is to lay out the ads? Was it the Editor’s cat? Because it reads like either a cat or a 6 year old wrote it.

2. No offense to 6 year olds.

3. You can’t just put a bunch of words that draw peoples’ attention (yoga! mom! today! eco!) together in a pileup of nonsensical paragraphs and hope for the best.

4. Correction; you SHOULDN’T. Words are important. They communicate ideas. If they are not communicating ideas, they shouldn’t be there. They should be somewhere else, next to other words, doing their jobs properly.

5. For example: “What else is different about women of the Yoga Mom mind set? A lot actually.” What the hell does that mean? First you created a “yoga mom” persona who is not real or recognizable. Then you claim she’s different, but you don’t say why. Then you imply that people might think non-soccer-moms are lazy because … they’re no longer going to soccer practices? Now they’re ignoring their kids and going to yoga? Or respecting their kids and going to yoga? Or are they taking their kids to yoga? If the soccer mom drives her kid to soccer doesn’t the yoga mom drive her kids to yoga? Or was the soccer mom actually PLAYING soccer all this time?

You see? I am confused and irritated by your sweeping generalizations, your half-assed assertions and your general misuse of the English language. Now you think I want to buy one of the things you’re advertising on the same page? Wrong-o!

You think I am thinking too much about this. You think if it bothers me so much I should just put the paper in the recycling and forget about it. And Newspaper Publisher People, I know you think no one is reading it because it is in between a bunch of ads. I know my eyes are supposed to see “text” next to “ads” and my brain is supposed to think “hey I’m reading a newspaper but suddenly I want to buy a Trollbead!”

It might seem silly to you, Newspaper Publisher People (and of course, Editor’s Cat.) But I actually care about words. I like them. When words are put together in a way that pleases the eye and communicates a message, all is right with the world. It is why I read. It is why I write. So when you use words as filler, as garbage, as something disposable, it sends the message that words don’t matter.

And words do matter. They can’t be used up, there are always more of them
look!
here!
more!
words!

but
they still deserve to be treated with respect.

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