questionable copy

I like that the name of this business is an adverb.

The storefront was a deserted mess. The fact that that's ironic only occurred to me while typing that last sentence; the point I was going to make was that the place provided me with no clues for what kind of a busines "Jubb's Longevity" might actually be. (My friend suggested health food.)

I'm not centering this because I have too much to say about the poster. I do not approve of a remake of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, particularly one starring John Travolta, because the original is both great and so very specifically of its time. But that's neither here nor there. What I really want to do here is to make a case for...

WHY IT IS NOT "NITPICKING"

TO COMPLAIN ABOUT

THE LACK OF COMMAS

IN THE ABOVE ADVERTISEMENT

1. If we're leaving out commas altogether, such that they must be inserted by the reader, there's no reason why this ad couldn't read, "You don't want to kill, innocent people, do you?" Like, "Come on, innocent people. Put down that detonator."
2. To the above you may respond, "Oh, please: anyone can tell what that sentence means." OK, but then we've got a "slippery slope" on our hands. The problem with the you-know-what-I-mean defense of sloppy grammar is that fewer of us would make that argument if the sign read, "U DONT WANT 2 KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE DO U," fewer still would be OK with, "U DONE WAN2 KIL INUCENT PEPIL DO U," and even fewer would defend something like, "UDON WAN!2KILINCENT PEPILL!!!!! DO U??!!!!D>." I ask you: isn't it clear what is meant by all three of these versions? The difference is not that they make less and less sense, just that they're less and less literate. When I taught English, students would sometimes ask why it mattered if they said, "Come with Ben and I,"* and one of my three answers† was that they wouldn't be so blasé about a sentence like "Me am want you come Ben–me togetherwith!" The fact that you can technically understand what is being said doesn't mean that it's being said in a reasonable way. Most of us do care whether something is said properly—we just have different levels of awareness of what's "proper."
3. Why not just put in the fucking comma? Sometimes bad punctuation in an ad is designed to affect the flow, to make it "read" a certain way (for illiterate people). But what is added by leaving out the comma in this ad? Are commas just not "in" in 2009?

[No comment.]

* Instead of "John and me." I'm not going to explain this to you.

† In addition to the cynical/social-pragmatic argument and in response to their objections to the ambiguity-avoidance argument.