Can't a-Ford an editor?

I've mentioned it before, and I've mentioned it again. Last time, it was the spoken word, on the radio, that set me off. Fine: you're speaking on-the-fly, and your brain can't construct grammatically correct sentences all the time. I can accept that. (Not really.)

But the written word? As one's job? Put in print?


Unlike the competition's mild hybrids, which always require power from the gasoline engine, full hybrids - like the new Ford Escape Hybrid - have the ability to drive in electric-only mode at certain speeds.

That means less trips to the gas station.

-Wired Magazine 13.01, p.71

Less trips.

How does this happen? The writer of this ad, I would assume, has an English degree. Or a writing degree. Or high-school to some degree.

He or she also has an editor, I should think. How about the customer, who might fancy a look at the advertisement they're paying for, before it goes to print? And no one noticed this?

At first I thought that the writer might be using nice, simple words for the reader, that somehow "fewer" was too «difficult» or obscure. Then I read the next line.


61% fewer smog-forming pollutants.


Okay, perhaps the writer (or editor) didn't like the word "fewer" twice in a row? Perhaps they were taught to avoid repetition by pulling out their handy thesaurus? But in this case, repetition is useful, as it drives the point home: fewer gas station stops, fewer emissions, etc.

Perhaps most likely (ruling out simple incompetence) is that the copy had changed from something like


That means less gas/fuel (used/consumed).


and someone didn't like the wording. Or they wanted not to emphasize the cost savings so much as the convenience of not having to stop as often? A few words get shuffled around, and no one re-reads the result?

Excuses all, and bad ones. I've come to expect it on live radio and in internet chatrooms. Even in amateur writing, such as the sandwich board for your local deli. But a writer for a big firm such as you'd expect Ford to hire?

But why waste my online breath? I'm probably the only one to have noticed. Still, if I can educate even one reader, or shame another into correctness, then my job is done. I take the stance that is, ironically, summarized in the last sentence of this ad:


On the road to a better future, some are born to lead the way.