How I saved the day

Yesterday, I went to Starbucks to engage in my usual weekend relaxation session. When I got to the counter, I noticed something was amiss with an advertising board: The name of the new beverage Starbucks is advertising was misspelled! (It was one of those hand-written chalk boards in which the employees advertise the latest craze in Starbucks beverages.)

The Vivanno, which is a smoothie-type beverage, is set to make its national premier in a few days. Rather than letting this grievous spelling mistake stare me in the face for eternity, I alerted one of the baristas to this awful error. I was thanked profusely, and I was left fulfilled, happy that I was able to make the world a better place. (Unfortunately, when I went there this morning, I noticed that one of the bullet points on the same chalkboard also included a misspelled insertion of "Vivanno." I alerted the same barista from yesterday, and I again wondered what those people would have done without me.)

In both cases, the author of that particular chalk board spelled "Vivanno" with one "n" rather than with two "n's." Do you want to know the worst part about it? (Of course you do.) The person who wrote up the advertisement was the store's assistant manager. Wha???

This assistant manager wasn't the only one to make such a mistake, however. When I Googled the word "Vivanno," one of my results yielded a Reuters blog entry in which another store employee had misspelled the name on a similar-looking chalk board! Apparently, the person who inserted the photo of that ad board did not notice the misspelled name, either.

What does this say about the state of language in our near future? I really don't want to infer that these circumstances are commonplace, but I think there is a problem when someone in a position of authority in a company misspells one of the company's trademarked products. I also wonder why someone who works at a newspaper (whether he is a blogger or a designer) would fail to notice the misspelling in the photo, especially if the blog entry itself had no errors.

Let's hope that this issue is resolved as the Vivanno is brought to the counters Starbucks stores throughout the country. And here's to hoping for some free samples.