POST-OFFICE PICK-ME-UP

The London Evening Standard today ran a feature on "multi-tasking beauty treatments" ('Party Season Pit Stops', page 36). One of the crossheads was rather ambiguous:

FOR MEN WHO NEED A POST-
OFFICE PICK-ME-UP


I'm a man, and the only thing I'm likely to pick up in the Post Office is a book of stamps.

Granted, putting the crosshead in caps (a trap that the online version avoids) doesn't help, but couldn't the Standard have run with 'post-work' or 'after-office' instead?

2 comments:

Stan said...

Unless I'm imagining it, post- is becoming increasingly conventional as a straight substitute for after — maybe because it's perceived to be fancier. I generally see no good or obvious reason for not using after.

In this case there's nothing wrong with after-office or after-work; neither sounds stilted, as the post- formulations do (at least to my ears), and both would avoid the latter's ambiguity.

On the other hand, I wouldn't have had a chuckle at your post. So maybe I should reconsider my prejudices...

the Dangling Modifier said...

To me it sounds like the post office was in the red light district, but then I didn't see the crosshead in context on the page.