Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?
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It's actually, as it turns out, not quite either. It's "pay the first month, then the second month is reduced off of each monthly after that". So it is REALLY "pay for one month, get 9% off for the next 11 months." So not as good as a second month free. I explained to them that the sign was incorrect and could mean one of two things, based on simple mistakes, and they knowing that those were the two possibilities said it was the 2nd month, not two months.
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Aww does that mean that the thread is over? I was just sitting here with popcorn like:
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I just got lucky, but I knew I had logic and statistics on my side. I figured I had a 67% of it being what I thought. So worth the call. This is Texas, English isn't strong, but marketing is VERY strong. These complexes are big business, these things are proofed and are definitely not allowed to go up haphazardly.
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That sign is just all kinds of misleading, and possibly outright wrong - probably really... especially, even considering the 2nd month free crap.. which as you said, isn't really free at all.
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@dashrender said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
That sign is just all kinds of misleading, and possibly outright wrong - probably really... especially, even considering the 2nd month free crap.. which as you said, isn't really free at all.
Yeah, definitely misleading in some ways. Which parts, if any, were accidents is hard to say. Given that they "2nd month free" wasn't exactly true, it's that much harder to believe the way that it was written was an accidental leaving out of the "nd".
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@scottalanmiller said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
@dashrender said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
That sign is just all kinds of misleading, and possibly outright wrong - probably really... especially, even considering the 2nd month free crap.. which as you said, isn't really free at all.
Yeah, definitely misleading in some ways. Which parts, if any, were accidents is hard to say. Given that they "2nd month free" wasn't exactly true, it's that much harder to believe the way that it was written was an accidental leaving out of the "nd".
Now this I'll give you. There were so many better ways to word this sign and get the real intention out there.
12 months for the price of 11 - for example. The use of the '2' seems completely and utterly inaccurate.
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@dashrender said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
@scottalanmiller said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
@dashrender said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
That sign is just all kinds of misleading, and possibly outright wrong - probably really... especially, even considering the 2nd month free crap.. which as you said, isn't really free at all.
Yeah, definitely misleading in some ways. Which parts, if any, were accidents is hard to say. Given that they "2nd month free" wasn't exactly true, it's that much harder to believe the way that it was written was an accidental leaving out of the "nd".
Now this I'll give you. There were so many better ways to word this sign and get the real intention out there.
12 months for the price of 11 - for example. The use of the '2' seems completely and utterly inaccurate.
Right. Which is kind of my point, when something in marketing is worded really badly so that it makes one thing "feel" like it must be what they meant but linguistically is no more likely that one or more things that favour the marketer, there is a good chance that it is just marketing. People who do marketing really are trained on this stuff and know that it works. That doesn't mean that there aren't legit mistakes out there, there are for sure. But the number of "non-mistakes" that look like mistakes is so high, you kind of have to assume intent when talking about a marketing tactic whose initial purpose was to convince you to do something.
It's not like normal human conversation where you see people make mistakes and they are just mistakes. This is a competitive bargaining system with aforethought. Making a true mistake like that in print would be a big deal, potentially, to a business. They have giant incentives to make sure it doesn't make them have to pay out when they don't intend to; and they have huge incentives to make it sound better than it is. That skews things dramatically from what we see in traditional conversation. And they know to use things that we see in traditional conversation to add credibility to the idea that it might be a mistake.
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@scottalanmiller said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
It's actually, as it turns out, not quite either. It's "pay the first month, then the second month is reduced off of each monthly after that". So it is REALLY "pay for one month, get 9% off for the next 11 months." So not as good as a second month free. I explained to them that the sign was incorrect and could mean one of two things, based on simple mistakes, and they knowing that those were the two possibilities said it was the 2nd month, not two months.
SO it WAS the ND that is missing, and they are just bad at math, no grammar. Well, that, too.
BTW: do you own that apartment complex? I think it needs to be disclosed if so.
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@brrabill said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
@scottalanmiller said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
It's actually, as it turns out, not quite either. It's "pay the first month, then the second month is reduced off of each monthly after that". So it is REALLY "pay for one month, get 9% off for the next 11 months." So not as good as a second month free. I explained to them that the sign was incorrect and could mean one of two things, based on simple mistakes, and they knowing that those were the two possibilities said it was the 2nd month, not two months.
SO it WAS the ND that is missing, and they are just bad at math, no grammar. Well, that, too.
BTW: do you own that apartment complex? I think it needs to be disclosed if so.
No, the ND wasn't missing, because that would be an outright lie - because the second month isn't free. The 2-12 payments are reduced by 9% to give the renter the end of year savings of a complete month. So the ND was left off so they weren't lieing.
But it's entirely misleading no matter what.
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@brrabill said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
@scottalanmiller said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
It's actually, as it turns out, not quite either. It's "pay the first month, then the second month is reduced off of each monthly after that". So it is REALLY "pay for one month, get 9% off for the next 11 months." So not as good as a second month free. I explained to them that the sign was incorrect and could mean one of two things, based on simple mistakes, and they knowing that those were the two possibilities said it was the 2nd month, not two months.
SO it WAS the ND that is missing, and they are just bad at math, no grammar. Well, that, too.
BTW: do you own that apartment complex? I think it needs to be disclosed if so.
I do
Wanted to see if you'd catch on.Dominica and I were just talking, she thinks that that apostrophe / ND thing is likely worth more like half a million or more to them, not $80K. It's a much larger complex than I realized. This is certainly big business with big marketing going on. And aimed at lower income (not low income) housing (my SIL lived in those very apartments when she was a new teacher) where marketing of this nature is very effective.
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@dashrender said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
@brrabill said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
@scottalanmiller said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
It's actually, as it turns out, not quite either. It's "pay the first month, then the second month is reduced off of each monthly after that". So it is REALLY "pay for one month, get 9% off for the next 11 months." So not as good as a second month free. I explained to them that the sign was incorrect and could mean one of two things, based on simple mistakes, and they knowing that those were the two possibilities said it was the 2nd month, not two months.
SO it WAS the ND that is missing, and they are just bad at math, no grammar. Well, that, too.
BTW: do you own that apartment complex? I think it needs to be disclosed if so.
No, the ND wasn't missing, because that would be an outright lie - because the second month isn't free. The 2-12 payments are reduced by 9% to give the renter the end of year savings of a complete month. So the ND was left off so they weren't lieing.
But it's entirely misleading no matter what.
They say 2nd month free. That's what they are claiming. So the "nd" was missing. And they make an argument for it, the second month is free prorated over the year. So in a way, it is free, and in a way it is not. But they are using the missing "nd" as their intent for the sign.
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After reading this thread I have to say that Scott's argument was more compelling. Let me tell you why.
1.) I was a prison guard for 6 years. I always assume people are not telling the truth.
2.) I now work with attorneys which has taught me if something is left vague, it is not for my benefit.
3.) Also because of the attorneys, people will use doublespeak which will result in them implying one thing but actually meaning the opposite.
Which boils down to the fact that you have to always ask questions, even if they are obvious and nail people down to what they exactly mean. You are the only person that can look out for you. -
@penguinwrangler said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
After reading this thread I have to say that Scott's argument was more compelling. Let me tell you why.
1.) I was a prison guard for 6 years. I always assume people are not telling the truth.
2.) I now work with attorneys which has taught me if something is left vague, it is not for my benefit.
3.) Also because of the attorneys, people will use doublespeak which will result in them implying one thing but actually meaning the opposite.
Which boils down to the fact that you have to always ask questions, even if they are obvious and nail people down to what they exactly mean. You are the only person that can look out for you.4.) Always get answers and explanations in writing. -- potentially even if you don't feel a need to CYA.
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@dafyre said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
@penguinwrangler said in Who is Two Month and Why Was He Imprisoned?:
After reading this thread I have to say that Scott's argument was more compelling. Let me tell you why.
1.) I was a prison guard for 6 years. I always assume people are not telling the truth.
2.) I now work with attorneys which has taught me if something is left vague, it is not for my benefit.
3.) Also because of the attorneys, people will use doublespeak which will result in them implying one thing but actually meaning the opposite.
Which boils down to the fact that you have to always ask questions, even if they are obvious and nail people down to what they exactly mean. You are the only person that can look out for you.4.) Always get answers and explanations in writing. -- potentially even if you don't feel a need to CYA.
Always do number four when money or relatives are involved. Especially if both are involved.
