Lost in Translation: What’s Your Ideal of Beauty?

I’ve had this picture of a real advert for about a year now and haven’t known whether I should share it. It’s the kind of humour we British are genetically programmed to love, bless our hearts. 

It would be a hot contender for the funniest gags at the Edinburgh Fringe list if it had appeared in their magazine, though looking at the winner, that’s not saying much. The reason all official British top ten jokes lists are so limp, by the way, is that the real jokes are far too rude for the British to own up to in public.

But back to this strange find. A busy marketeer – presumably not a native speaker of English – overlooked the third claim when approving this face cream advert from Swiss Air’s Duty Free Magazine. I do feel a hint of sorrow for their mortification when someone pointed this out, but the flaws in the advert are more deep rooted than the translation. If only we had a miracle cream guaranteed to cure the visible signs of lax thinking!

I can’t believe I’m the only one who enjoys seeing the beauty in older faces. You might expect the brief for this image would specify a mature model with a few wrinkles, not a younger one with perfect, possibly airbrushed, skin.

Has the advert persuaded you that the face cream has miraculously reduced this model’s wrinkles and dark spots, and increased her skin’s… er… clamping force? Me neither!

If she’s too young to show us the benefits of the product, why was she chosen? Because this is how we’re going to look if we buy the cream? Because our concept of beauty is limited to the young?

I’ll never understand why the beauty in older or ‘less perfect’ faces is not more widely celebrated. We don’t rule out beauty in old animals, trees, buildings or antiques – quite the opposite. We sense that age adds something. The camera loves older faces (and objects) just as much as young ones: I feel the same.

Yes, I use cream to screen my skin from the sun, and to feed it, but just a tip: if you’re advertising to me, don’t try to con me, don’t insult my intelligence and don’t imply that only a youthful face has beauty.

I can’t claim always to have been clear sighted – like almost everyone reading this, I remember a time when 19 year olds looked ancient. If that doesn’t give us some sense of perspective, nothing can. Getting older myself, I’ve come round to appreciating the warmer, less imperious beauty of age. It’s been a real blessing.

I’m not here to lecture – either you get it or you don’t. I feel sure my regular readers do.

So I’ll take a deep breath (in with anger… out with love…) and move on to a more innocuous, but similarly flawed translation I discovered on an airline snack:

The pack is littered with promotional claims, each vying with the other for our attention. Let’s break down the phrase ‘real crispy desirable taste’. These delicious cheese bites have:

• A real taste?
• A crispy taste?
• A desirable taste?

Mmm. Nice try – very enthusiastic – it sounds plausible, but we can only mark it could do better.

As long as international marketeers use English as a one-size-fits-all language, native English speakers are guaranteed a few giggles when their efforts strain at the seams. I suppose the real miracle is that so few of them slip through the net. If you’ve spotted one or have a pet advertising peeve of your own, let me know.

Hang on – I forgot to apply my Complete Care plus multi-radiance cream today – must dash! 🙂