Aldilliterate
So Aldi is a German company, and maybe has an excuse, but it provides an egregious example of bad grammar in its posters, which you'll see in store and match the slogans on the page I link to. It's correct to say:
100% of Aldi's fresh meat is Australian.
but I'm sorry to say, a solecism to write:
95% of Aldi's fresh fruit and vegetables is Australian.
The sentence is similarly structured to:
A lot of people are unhappy about inflation.
which few would render incorrectly.
The writer is of course confused because we do write:
The number of fresh fruit and vegetables is huge.
Just in case you're not clear on the difference, I'll explain.
In "The number of fresh fruit and vegetables is huge", what is huge is the number. It doesn't describe or limit the fruit and vegetables in any way; the opposite is true. In "95% of Aldi's fresh fruit and vegetables are Australian", what are Australian are most of the fruit and vegetables. "95%", like all percentages, is not ethnically specific.
posted by Dr Zen @ 4:50 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home