Dijon Master and his trusty sidekick, Mustard Plaster

So maybe the 19 Minutes staff is more demanding than most when it comes to copy editing. And perhaps it's unfair to pick on the D'Amico and Sons Deli at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport when it's possible neither D'Amico nor his sons started life in the United States. More likely, that was the case for the guy at HMS Host, the company behind the probably apocryphal D'Amico and Sons. Regardless, we were shocked (shocked!) to read the ingredient label on the Black Forest Ham Baguette purchased in a mad dash (or at least a lazy amble) through MSP last week:

"Ham, Italian Baguette, Provolone Cheese, Field Greens, Tomato, Dijon Mastered." [my emphasis]

Those French really know their sandwiches, especially when it gets down to post-production. C'est dommage.

But of course the HMS Host people aren't the only ones to attract the ire of the 19 Minutes crack copy editing squad in recent days. (Mais non!) (I'll quit the cheeseball French bit now.) Here at the home office, we're always entertained by a Baby Gund animal belonging to our daughter - it's a little monkey in a baseball uniform (referred to as 'the baseball monkey', as in: "Sylvi! Where's your baseball monkey? There he is!!!"). When you squeeze it, it plays "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", or at least a rendition that features a special bonus verse that ends one note too soon, as in:

"...For it's One! Two! Three strikes you're out at the old... ball..."

This, perhaps, should not have been too surprising, since the baseball monkey came with a helpful tag that explained "I'm a Musical!". (As for what musical, one could only guess that it's probably "Damn Yank..." or perhaps "The Music...", or even "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream...")

More recently, we were irked at an ad for Suave skin care products, featuring the trademarked slogan, "How beautiful is that." Forget for a moment that it's a rhetorical question - but at least remember that it's a question, for &%$#@! sakes! Again, perhaps we shouldn't be entirely surprised, since Suave's entry website is titled "Choose your County". (Amazingly, Coconino County, Arizona, was not an available choice.)

And finally, we're just altogether baffled by the ad on page 25 of this month's National Geographic Traveler, in which the Audiovox people invite you to

"Sell the XR9 XM plug-and-play receiver with all the Xtras.",

which seems like an odd suggestion, since we were under the impression that Audiovox was trying to sell it.

But we're strongly considering XM, anyway, since it'd allow us to avoid any more unnecessary ads.