11.14.2005

Oh, Ya. You Betcha.



This billboard greets me on the way to work every day. Actually, this is my Photoshopped rendering of it, since I'm not wont to stop on the freeway and take a picture. What interests me is the deliberation in the art department of where to place that two-foot high apostrophe:

...no, "ya" isn't a word. it's an abbreviation of "you."
Yeah, but what letter are you replacing with the apostrophe?
What are you talking about?! The apostrophe is there to show people that we know we're using nonstandard English!
What, is that from Strunk & White: The Lost Elements? You're making up usage!
Dude, just put in the apostrophe.
Fine. Where does it go?
Just put it where it makes sense...


Maybe because we put one in "y'all", they thought we needed one here. Of course, then we'd have:

ORANGE Y'A GLAD TO SEE US?

Which just looks silly.
If Ya, sans punctuation, is good enough for Outkast, it should be good enough for Adams Outdoor Advertising.

3 comments:

ejs said...

I have to admit that this one does hold the same offense, in my mind, as the others. Not that it is any less wrong, but it makes sense to me why they wanted to do it. Perhaps I am way off base and perhaps you too follow the reasoning yet are still frustrated with the inappropriate usage. Just in case that be not the case:

Do Not You becomes don't you, which in the watered down lazy man's usage becomes don'cha?
You are not, are you? becomes aren't you and in the same fashion as above becomes aren'cha?

The nonsensical ensues when orange replaces arench, but evenso it is still intended to represent a contraction and therefore Oran'geya is created... but who would understand that? And we still want people to realize how clever we are and understand that it is a play on words from a contraction... and how is a contraction expressed?

Orange'ya... To me, it seems as though they knew exactly what they were doing as opposed to not knowing what to do with the flying comma-wannabe, eventhough, for whatever reason, they decided to space the 'ya from its sisterhood.

Just my thoughts.

Eric "Babe" Morse said...

My point exactly.

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