[Gefreiter]

CW,
And this problem of sloppy writing is not limited to internal company messages. It shows in advertising too.

The latest one to really frost me is...Radio Shack? Circuit City? "You've got questions. We've got answers". Fowler might say it's OK, but the word "got" just bugs me; it's totally unnecessary there.

Or, how many times have you read a description of a company, or a "mission statement" (a horrible phrase), and come away with no clue about what the company actually does?

Or, how the heck did we get anything done before all these companies sprouted up to "provide solutions"?!

[banjo joe]

It shows in advertising too.

News copy is usually worse than ad copy.

[Gondring]

Heck, here in Pennsylvania, we had an automobile license plate that said...

    You've Got a Friend in Pennsylvania

It was eventually yanked for the play on words with the Quakers, the fact that there was a representative by the name "Friend," and the poor grammar.

Unfortunately, the nuttiness continues: A bill was introduced in 2000 to make it the official state slogan, and the Commonwealth has paid millions for tourism campaigns since then, yielding winners such as the "Pennsylvania Memories Last a Lifetime" (and that was my first documented use of a colon introducing a sentence-within-a-sentence--a construction I hate, but thought I'd use in honor of this discussion!).

Everyone knows that the slogan is actually, "Pennsylvania: Where the Buick Meets Bambi!"