Taradiddle #2
Awarded 14 November 1999
The greatness of the Taradiddle Award is that as an editor the only thing I have to do to find a worthy recipient is to wait. It is not necessary to spend hours and hours in the library or precious sleep time surfing the net or neglect throwing the ball for my dog to call experts who would sell their prized information at a high price. No, no, no. On the contrary, the information is so abundant, so bountiful, so copious that it would require sustained, self-imposed ignorance to escape it. The second Taradiddle to be awarded by The Corporate Asylum came in the mail box. It even had my name on it--among other things.
The first clue about junk mail is the "bulk rate" stamp. No matter how official or how inviting a piece of mail may look if it has a "bulk rate" stamp on it, it can safely be thrown away without perusing the contents. The piece I received not only had that sure giveaway, but it also had several other things on it:
"Registered Documents Enclosed"
"Official Certification No. 37. Shipped by: D.D.[The "D. D." is printed as if a real person wrote it]"
"TAMPER PROOF IF THIS SEAL IS BROKEN AT TIME OF ARRIVAL, PLEASE NOTIFY LOCAL POSTAL AUTHORITIES."All this is supposed to give the impression that one has received something of extreme importance. I, of course, fell for it. I ripped it open while screaming the good news to my wife and sure enough I was greeted with the stupendous information that I was "officially on record as the winner of $833,337.00 in cash!"(if I "have the Grand Prize winning entry") You know the drill. We all know the drill.
There is something evil about these things. Partly, it's that language is debased and trivialized. Words are not meant to mean what they mean but are only there to elicit an unreflective, emotional response. It's also bothersome that these types of letters are technically legal even though the document contains lies and falsehoods. For instance, the first line(addressed to me--I feel so important!) says, "I strongly suggest that you seat yourself comfortably before you read any further, and prepare yourself for some incredibly good news!" Incredibly good news to me would mean that something good was definitely going to happen as a result of this letter. So what is this incredibly good news? Well, technically, it's that I have one chance in 120 million of winning the Grand Prize. That's right: 1:120,000,000. Later it says, "But it's safe to say that as of the moment these documents arrived . . . things may never be quite the same . . . After all $883,337.00 is an enormous amount of money." Yes, it is a lot of money, money I wouldn't refuse if it was offered to me, but if it is "safe" to say that my life will change wouldn't the odds be better than 1:120,000,000? If somebody told me that the odds of getting on a jet and having a "safe" flight were 1:120,000,000 I'd have to be crazy to get on that plane. I am The Inmate and I am mad, but I'm not crazy. I could quote the whole letter for faithful readers of The Corporate Asylum but most of you have to go to work tomorrow(or most of you have to get back to work after reading this) and paying homage to the porcelain god is, I will admit, worse than working.
The Taradiddle Award #2(How incredibly appropriate!) goes to Sports Illustrated, their parent company, Time, Inc. and to the person whose name appears at the end of the letter, the Director of Sweepstakes, Elizabeth Matthews. We award this Taradiddle for their lack of integrity, their lack of ethics, for degrading the English language, for their complete lack of respect for sensible people and their inability to promote their product intelligently and honorably.
Odds that you are reading this, 1:1. Odds that you work for a corporation capable of winning a Taradiddle, 19:20. Odds that the recipients of Taradiddle #2 know what taradiddle means , 1:1,000,000. Odds that you did before reading this web site, 1:1,000,000. Odds that The Inmate did before he found the word in his synonym finder, 1:5,000,000. Odds of winning the Taradiddle are estimated to be 1:120,000,000.
©1999 The Corporate Asylum
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