While wandering around the refec today trying to decide which of their fine products I would consume, I read the slogan on a tshirt being worn by a fellow patron. Obviously someone for whom the concept of fitness is a purely theoretical construct, this shirt proudly declared "I am in shape, 'round' is a shape". I've seen either this shirt or identical shirts before and not given them more than a millisecond's thought, but today was different. I felt something was wrong, and, as always, I was right. There's an error in the shirt's statement, for 'round' is not actually a shape. 'Round' is an adjective, not a noun (in this context, but the noun of round doesn't refer to shapes at all). Sphere, circle, polygon, dodecahedron and oblong are all shapes. Round, spherical, circular, rectangular, and polygonal are all adjectives.
Shirt slogans have no excuse for poor grammar.
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2 comments:
To say nothing of the fairly important difference between "in shape" and "in a shape". Evidently this T-shirt was written by someone whose native language doesn't use articles.
I wonder if it's worth pointing the errors out to those wearing the shirt.
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