I keep getting this one Facebook ad that represents a crime against the English language, not to mention the game it's intended to support:
Play Chess against opponents worldwide in what is known as "correspondence" style chess.
1. Lower-case chess, and no need for quotes around correspondence
2. Did someone put a gun to their head and force them to squander syllables? (Did "Play correspondence chess against opponents worldwide" just not have a good ring to it?)
3. Correspondence isn't really a style, certainly not the way Chess960 constitutes a style. "Correspondence" traditionally meant that moves were mailed. The two big points here are that you don't have to be in the same room as your opponent, and you could (if you so chose) spend hours if not days analyzing a game in progress. Well, any old Internet site (from FICS to games.yahoo.com) satisfies the first criterion, and Facebook's leading chess app* (*- chess.com, not to be confused with letsplaychess.com from the ad in question) actually satisfies both inasmuch as the default time control is one move per three days.
Really, though, it's the awkward turn of phrase in the ad that just drives me up a wall.
Posted by Matt Bruce at September 22, 2008 09:04 PM