Everyday Irritations Every Day of the Week

Know what bothers me every day? It's the everyday misuse of every day. The everyday instances of it should have rendered me immune to it by now, but every day I find myself offended when every day is everyday and everyday is every day--though the latter rarely happens. At least not every day.

I see it all the time--every day, really--in advertising; whether at a mom-and-pop gas station or in national campaigns from billion-dollar corporations. Huge companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for prime-time ad spots only to fail to spend a hundred bucks on something as everyday as a proofreader. Heck, even Kris Kringle needs a little refresher course:

For a reasonable hourly fee, corporate America could avoid hiring the best directors and commercial actors just to have the entire commercial fall flat when they promise--in big letters--Real Value Everyday or Great Deals Everyday. Corporate titans could discover that if something happens regularly, it takes place every day. If they need an adjective to insinuate regularity (keep your fiber jokes to yourself), everyday works. Observe:

We have rock-bottom prices every day.
We have everyday deals.

Those are both correct, unless your prices are high, which then becomes a matter of opinion. What's not up for debate is the misappropriation of every day vs. everyday. Am I being a word nerd by caring so much? Maybe, but I'm right.

And this is but one of my language pet peeves. Don't even get me started on the its vs. it's faux pas I see everyday (did you catch it?). It's a grammar black hole with its own grotesque potential for mangling.

You spend too much on marketing materials and campaigns to have errors. Hire a $25- or $50-an-hour proofreader to clean up your copy.