Rhyme Scheme

A few years ago--I guess it was a few, but it could have been thirty or forty, for all I know--all the fast-food joints began to use more or less the same line in their advertising: "Two can dine for $9.99!" I mean, the price could differ, depending on what was being sold, and the number of people likewise, but the format remained the same: "N can dine for $X.99". And why not? It was pretty catchy, and it rhymed, and everybody likes a rhyme, right?

It's not just in North America, either. Here's a coupon from the reverse side of a bus ticket we got in Wales when we were there last September:


An advertising flyer for Burger King, at which I don't eat for various reasons but mostly because that plastic-headed king mascot of theirs is just plain creepy, appeared in our mailbox yesterday, and here are a couple of the coupons featured on it:


Now, honestly. I ask you. What kind of pinhead thought that was a good idea? Is their business really so price-sensitive that not dropping the price of the product by a single penny would have meant the loss of sales?

I am completely convinced that someone somewhere along the production line (but before the printing stage) noticed this and pointed it out to his or her immediate supervisor, and was brushed away. And now the company looks like one big tin-eared idiot.