Hopefully I can find a copy of the ad because visual aids always help, but in case I can’t, there is a recent promotion from a mobile phone company for a family bundle package. The slogan used in the ad is this:
The family that saves together, smiles forever.
Any proper Grammar Nazi will immediately get his hackles up over the gratuitous comma, but it’s the actual phrase that rubs me the wrong way. First, linking saving with smiling seems natural — saving makes you happy, being happy results in smiling. Logical. But smiling over savings, no matter how fantastic, is a transitory experience, not one that lasts forever. This brings to mind an image of the family all gathered in the afterlife, still grinning away over their great cellphone bundled savings, even as they no longer need an unlimited plan to reach through the nether to scare surviving relatives. Alternately I picture a pharaoh being buried with his family, sealed away for all time under a great pyramid, each family member clutching a cell phone to his or her hand. If they had cell phones in ancient Egypt, that is. Or maybe I’m projecting because of that ancient Egypt episode of Futurama I saw recently.
In any case, the slogan is creepy.