New Long and Short of It
SCOTT CORBETT has contributed to various magazines and served in the Rainbow Division during the war, when he was news editor of the Division’s newspaper. A native of Missouri, he now lives in New York. His book The Reluctant Landlord, published by Crowell last May, will shortly be made into a moving picture.
by SCOTT CORBETT
ONE thing of keen interest to me lately is the progress we have been making away from the arbitrariness of weights and measures. Elasticity has appeared in places where our forefathers wouldn’t have thought it possible.
As is so often the case nowadays, the wheels of progress have been greased by the Art of Advertising in its own oleaginous way.
Until recently I had supposed that, eight ounces were eight ounces. But that was before I came across a peculiar ad that extolled Nutso Peanut Butter.
“Large 8-ounce jar, 35¢,” it said.
I confess I was completely unable to grasp this bold new concept until my wife set me straight. She reads more advertisements than I and thus dogs more closely the heels of the copywrit ing avant-garde.
“Sure — large 8-ounce jar,” she nodded with quick understanding. “That’s to avoid any confusion with the small 8-ounce jar put out by their competitors.”
“Now, wait a minute! There’s no such thing as a small ounce or a large ounce. An ounce is simply — well, an unqualified ounce.”
“Don’t be naive, dear. You’re not moving with the times. Everything is qualified these days. Why, I suppose you don’t even know about the Twin Elms Chicken Dinner Inn out near Buckram Falls.”
“ What about it? ”
“ Well, according to the signboards, it’s just a short 1.2 miles off the highway.”
W hile I was trying to realign my thinking and catch up with her, my wife began to search through the newspaper.
“You know,” I said, “I’d like to take a run out there sometime and have them mark off a short mile for me so that I could compare it with a plain, old-fashioned —”
“Here.” My wife spread the newspaper before me. “Maybe this department store ad will help clear up your confusion.”
I studied the offering. It had to do with a remnant sale, and said somet hing about cot ton yard goods: —
“ Long 62-inch remnants while they last!”
“I suppose that every piece is a wide yard in width,”I was moved to comment.
“Oh, always. But let me turn back here.” She flipped the pages and pointed to an airline ad. “See? They’ll have you in Chicago in a brief 2 hours and 20 minutes.
For a moment I was on more familiar ground.
“Well, now, I can go along with them on time a little easier than I can on ounces or miles or inches,”I declared. “Time does seem pretty elastic. However, that very fact makes their claim all the more dubious and risky. Suppose you happen to sit next to a talkative bore? Show me a brief 2 hours and 20 minutes under those conditions!”
“Darling, you don’t seem to grasp the inner meaning of all this,” said my wife patiently. “Time varies according to what you’re advertising. It isn’t always brief. Take for example the sight-seeing buses. They advertise their trips as including a ‘long 15-minute ride’ through City Park.”
I shook my head, which was beginning to feel rather gray and obsolete.
“Well, the handwriting is on the wall in letters 12 large inches high,” I observed. “Any day now, some farmer will dig his well a deep 30 feet. And I wonder who’ll be the first record-holder in the long 100-yard dash?”
No doubt it will be some good-looking college boy who’s a tall 5 foot 7.
