Support lung disease, help the genocide

Here at The Engine Room we appreciate all your contributions, especially those we sit on for six months. Gareth sent us this email back in July:

A few weeks ago, I took part in the ASICS Great British 10K run through central London. As you'd expect, there were lots of teams of charity runners taking part.

At one point I ended up following a team of people in matching orange sweatshirts with the slogan "Breathtakers - Supporting Rare Lung Disease". Which seemed a little harsh. I was hoping they'd meet a team of people supporting research into preventing rare lung disease, and they could have had a big punch-up.

Anyway, joking aside, they are a good cause and they've got a website - www.breathtakers.co.uk. I've chucked them a few quid just for giving me a good laugh. Maybe if your readers are feeling charitable then they'd like to do the same!


Shortly after this, and rather coincidentally, Lynneguist (from Separated by a Common Language) emailed us with the following:

Was driving through Palmyra, New York (the birthplace of Mormonism!) yesterday, and spotted a handwritten sign affixed to a telephone pole near a traffic light. It said:

"Children are being hurt and killed in Darfur. Donate money to help the genocide." (I think it gave a phone number at the end.)

Now, the handwriting was rather childish, so I feel a little bad poking fun at what is probably a heartfelt desire to do good. But still, I thought it was funny.

But now I've just googled "help the genocide" and found examples from people who ought to know better:


Sheesh!


None of us is immune from making this sort of mistake. Recently I caught myself telling someone that I was "raising money for male cancer" – as if cancer needs the cash...

4 comments:

THE GRAMMARPHILE said...

Somehow I'm not surprised you found this mistake on a couple of Yahoo Answers pages...

The Ridger, FCD said...

This is a very common error - so common that I think it may have slipped over the line into idiomhood.

The Ridger, FCD said...

Forgot to add - after all, something being "good for your cold/cough/headache/whatever" has been around for a good long time.

Apus said...

...for so long, in fact, that I remember a series of schoolboy jokes along the lines of: "What's good for a headache? A bang on the head!" or "What's good for a sore throat? Smoke 40 Gaulois" or "What's good for an upset stomache? Eat roadkill" etc...