I just got my JCPenney mailer yesterday. It’s the new flashy, colorful one from the revamped JCPenny taken over by the former Apple executive. Cute stuff, but the models are all a LOT taller than I am so I have no sense of how any of that stuff would look on me. Oh, and it looks like the only food they’ve had in years is dry crackers. Poor girls.
But back to the pamphlet. It’s been streamlined down to a few pages like a booklet instead of the big honking catalog they used to send. I loved that catalog. But it’s all online now, so I can see the utility of not sending that. I say I used to love the catalog, but I have a caveat. I did love it–before they started their slogan “JCPenney: Everyday.”
What’s with that? Every single time I looked at that slogan I winced.
Why?
Because “everyday” is an adjective. It means “ordinary,” or “commonplace,” or “usual.”
Why would a big company want to shout constantly to the world, “Hey! We’re ordinary!”
No wonder they needed to headhunt an Apple executive to come in and restructure things. Didn’t they have anyone on staff who could point out this obvious, glaring error in their advertising? I ask you.
Now, if they’d been a little more grammtically savvy and chosen the two-word version of this lineup of letters, calling it, “JCPenney: Every Day,” it would have made more sense. Like they wanted customers to come in and shop every day because every day they would need the great stuff at JCPenney. Not just ordinary, boring, everyday stuff.
I guess I have a little pet peeve about this, it would seem. So, here’s my momentary, mini-campaign to point out the difference.
Everyday = an adjective that means commonplace. “It’s only the Joneses coming for dinner tonight and not the Carstairs, so just use the everyday stoneware and not the fine china.”
Every day = an adverbial phrase that means a frequency of an activity. “I would shop at JCPenney every day if I were as tall as those willowy models, but you can’t make me subsist on saltine crackers alone, so I’ll need a larger size than the fashion they show in the booklet.”
Whew. Rant complete. Now I think I’ll go order a dress shirt for my husband from JCPenney, since they dumped their annoying slogan. In fact, I’ll get two. He needs another blue one since he wears blue almost every day.
