A few weeks ago, I took part in the ASICS Great British 10K run through central London. As you'd expect, there were lots of teams of charity runners taking part.
At one point I ended up following a team of people in matching orange sweatshirts with the slogan "Breathtakers - Supporting Rare Lung Disease". Which seemed a little harsh. I was hoping they'd meet a team of people supporting research into preventing rare lung disease, and they could have had a big punch-up.
Anyway, joking aside, they are a good cause and they've got a website - www.breathtakers.co.uk. I've chucked them a few quid just for giving me a good laugh. Maybe if your readers are feeling charitable then they'd like to do the same!
Shortly after this, and rather coincidentally, Lynneguist (from Separated by a Common Language) emailed us with the following:
Was driving through Palmyra, New York (the birthplace of Mormonism!) yesterday, and spotted a handwritten sign affixed to a telephone pole near a traffic light. It said:
"Children are being hurt and killed in Darfur. Donate money to help the genocide." (I think it gave a phone number at the end.)
Now, the handwriting was rather childish, so I feel a little bad poking fun at what is probably a heartfelt desire to do good. But still, I thought it was funny.
But now I've just googled "help the genocide" and found examples from people who ought to know better:
Sheesh!
None of us is immune from making this sort of mistake. Recently I caught myself telling someone that I was "raising money for male cancer" – as if cancer needs the cash...
4 comments:
Somehow I'm not surprised you found this mistake on a couple of Yahoo Answers pages...
This is a very common error - so common that I think it may have slipped over the line into idiomhood.
Forgot to add - after all, something being "good for your cold/cough/headache/whatever" has been around for a good long time.
...for so long, in fact, that I remember a series of schoolboy jokes along the lines of: "What's good for a headache? A bang on the head!" or "What's good for a sore throat? Smoke 40 Gaulois" or "What's good for an upset stomache? Eat roadkill" etc...
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