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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Beyonce in the Bathroom

I realize that I'm about six years late on this one, but give a break to a guy who doesn't listen to Top 40 music and appreciate my astonishment at learning that Beyonce's second solo album was titled B'Day. This is why we have editors. This is why people who work with words should probably get a second, third or fourth opinion before an assemblage of text is finalized and then printed several million times.


Because no one with an understanding of spoken English would look at that album title and pronounce it as "Bee Day." No, that would be rendered as B Day or B. Day or maybe even B-Day, in the style of V-Day or D-Day. As it stands now, the instinctive way most people would pronounce B'Day, I'd guess, is more like g'day, which is what Australians say to each other in the morning. And that's hilarious, because it sounds pretty much exactly like bidet, which is not a glamorous pop star's music album but a bathroom fixture you use to unsoil the filthiest parts of your body.

But how is it possible that no one involved in the creative process behind this album raised their hand and pointed out that that B'Day would be pronounced like those European anti-toilets? Or was that the point the whole time?

This, I'd wager, is worse than the difference between "Paint It Black" and "Paint It, Black."

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